Gradle download dependency merge into maven local repository?

Question

It's the 1st time to use gradle in our project and we're using the local maven repository. Now I have a question: Is it possible to make gradle download dependency merging into local maven repository automatically? Is there any configuration or plugin to resolve? Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

Short answer is: no way!

Gradle has its own cache, although it can read the maven local repo like this:

repositories {
    mavenLocal()
    mavenCentral()
}

If some dependency not found in maven local repo, Gradle will download it from maven central and cache it in ~/.gradle/caches/...

see http://forums.gradle.org/gradle/topics/cache_dependencies_into_local_maven_repository_from_gradle

Answer 2

Although Gradle has its own cache, the files are stored in a structure similar to that of Maven local repository. To update Maven local with dependencies from Gradle cache, here are the task and configuration for that (tested with Gradle 7.5):

repositories {
    mavenLocal()
}

dependencies {
 // Place your dependencies here
}

build {
    finalizedBy 'cacheToMavenLocal'
}

task cacheToMavenLocal(type: Copy) {
    from new File(gradle.gradleUserHomeDir, 'caches/modules-2/files-2.1')
    into repositories.mavenLocal().url
    eachFile {
        List<String> parts = it.path.split('/')
        it.path = [parts[0].replace('.','/'), parts[1], parts[2], parts[4]].join('/')
    }
    includeEmptyDirs false
}

The task was copied and adapted from @Adrodoc55's answer on Gradle forum.

---

As an addendum:

Using the maven-publish plugin's publishToMavenLocal task, Gradle will publish the project's build artifacts (e.g. resulting .jar file) to Maven local.

gradle publishToMavenLocal