Is it possible to declare git repository as dependency in android gradle?

Question

I want to use master version of my lib from mavencentral.

Is it possible to declare git repository as dependency in android gradle?

Answer 1

I don't think Gradle supports to add a git repository as a dependency. My workaround is to:

• declare that the main project depends on another project in the filesystem
• provide a way to automatically clone the git repo in the folder declared as a dependency

I assume that you want the library repo outside the folder of the main project repo, so each project will be independent git repos, and you can make commits to the library and main project git repositories independently.

Assuming you want to have the folder of the library project in the same folder that the folder of the main project,

You could:

In the top-level settings.gradle, declare the library repository as a project, given it's location in the filesystem

// Reference:  https://looksok.wordpress.com/2014/07/12/compile-gradle-project-with-another-project-as-a-dependency/

include ':lib_project'
project( ':lib_project' ).projectDir = new File(settingsDir, '../library' )

Use the gradle-git plugin to clone the library from the git repository

    import org.ajoberstar.gradle.git.tasks.*

    buildscript {
       repositories { mavenCentral() }
       dependencies { classpath 'org.ajoberstar:gradle-git:0.2.3' }
    }

    task cloneLibraryGitRepo(type: GitClone) {
            def destination = file("../library")
            uri = "https://github.com/blabla/library.git"
            destinationPath = destination
            bare = false
            enabled = !destination.exists() //to clone only once
        }

In the dependencies of your project, say that the code of your project depends on the folder of the git project

dependencies {
    compile project(':lib_project')
}