gradle: copy war to tomcat directory

Question

I\'m trying to write a Gradle task which copies generated war files to my local tomcat instance:

This isn\'t working and I\'m not sure how to debug it:

Answer 1

You could of-course use the tomcat plugin. My setup prevents me from using/modify the out of the box war & tomcat option.

I personally like the following flavor (copied from my build.gradle).

tomcat_home='tomcat_location'
tomcat_bin=tomcat_home + '/bin'
tomcat_start=tomcat_bin + '/startup.sh'
tomcat_stop=tomcat_bin + '/shutdown.sh'
tomcat_webapps = tomcat_home + '/webapps'

task tom << {
    if (project.hasProperty('start')) {
        startTom()
    } else if (project.hasProperty('stop')) {
        stopTom()
    } else if (project.hasProperty('deployNstart')) {
        stopTom()
        webappsCopy()
        startTom()
    } else {
        throw new RuntimeException('unrecognized option')
    }
}

def stopTom() {
    executeCmd(tomcat_stop)
}

def startTom() {
    executeCmd(tomcat_start)
}


def executeCmd(command) {
    proc = command.execute()
    proc.waitFor()
}

def webappsCopy() {
    copy {
        from 'war file location' // could be exploded or war itself
        into tomcat_webapps
    }
}

-- you call the various options you include in the 'tom' task from the command line --

$ gradle tom -Pstart
$ gradle tom -Pstop
$ gradle tom -PdeployNstart

this could potentially grow further, as I add more commands/options related to Tomcat. Few pointers:

1. move the location etc. to gradle.properties so that it could work in different environments.
2. poll your tomcat server port to fine tune options and msgs.
3. move to plugin/task code that could be reused.

this limited version works for me right now :-)