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How do I add config files or any other resources into my jar using gradle?

My project structure:

src/main/java/com/perseus/.. --- Java packages (source files)

src/main/java/config/*.xml --- Spring config files

Expected jar structure:

com/perseus/.. --- Java packages (class files)

config/*.xml --- Spring config files

9 Answers 9

123

I came across this post searching how to add an extra directory for resources. I found a solution that may be useful to someone. Here is my final configuration to get that:

sourceSets { main { resources { srcDirs "src/main/resources", "src/main/configs" } } } 
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1 Comment

This is a much simpler solution than the accepted answer
97

Move the config files from src/main/java to src/main/resources.

4 Comments

Works for me, looks like the easiest and "most correct" way to go about achieving this.
This answer suggests a work-around rather than a solution, and Gradle provides a solution.
@TerribleTadpole this is the correct solution. All other are workarounds.
Didn't worked. Resources files are not recognized when running the .jar file.
73

Thanks guys, I was migrating an existing project to Gradle and didn't like the idea of changing the project structure that much.

I have figured it out, thought this information could be useful to beginners.

Here is a sample task from my 'build.gradle':

version = '1.0.0' jar { baseName = 'analytics' from('src/main/java') { include 'config/**/*.xml' } manifest { attributes 'Implementation-Title': 'Analytics Library', 'Implementation-Version': version } } 

3 Comments

It's more accurate to reconfigure the source set. Something like sourceSets.main.resources { srcDirs = ["src/main/java"]; exclude "**/*.java" }.
Thanks @PeterNiederwieser!! Been trying to get my log4j.xml file to be included in my executable jar that I was building using shadow. I too was dealing with an older project and could not readily change the directory structure. Your suggestion was exactly what I needed!! :D
@PeterNiederwieser - I notice in Java plugin documentation that resources is already defined to exclude *.java. "Contains only resources, and excludes any .java files found in the resource source directories."
32

By default any files you add to src/main/resources will be included in the jar.

If you need to change that behavior for whatever reason, you can do so by configuring sourceSets.

This part of the documentation has all the details

2 Comments

Would you know why only the content of .../resources/ are included instead of the resources directory with the content?
@sargas You should probably start a new question where you can easily include all the context. It's hard to get much information in the comment section :(
21

I ran into the same problem. I had a PNG file in a Java package and it wasn't exported in the final JAR along with the sources, which caused the app to crash upon start (file not found).

None of the answers above solved my problem but I found the solution on the Gradle forums. I added the following to my build.gradle file :

sourceSets.main.resources.srcDirs = [ "src/" ] sourceSets.main.resources.includes = [ "**/*.png" ] 

It tells Gradle to look for resources in the src folder, and ask it to include only PNG files.

EDIT: Beware that if you're using Eclipse, this will break your run configurations and you'll get a main class not found error when trying to run your program. To fix that, the only solution I've found is to move the image(s) to another directory, res/ for example, and to set it as srcDirs instead of src/.

1 Comment

I used the += operator to add my dirs to the existing dirs: e.g. sourceSets.main.resources.srcDirs += [ "src/main/java" ]
3

Be aware that the path under src/main/resources must match the package path of your .class files wishing to access the resource. See my answer here.

Comments

1

As I have answered here, for more granularity while configuring the resource directories it's also possible to use srcDir.

sourceSets { main { resources { srcDir "src/main/resources" srcDir "src/main" include "configs/**/*.xml" } } } 

So, if you have src/main/java/config/*.xml jar structure will have configs/*.xml as asked.

Comments

1

This is for Kotlin DSL (build.gradle.kts):

sourceSets { main { resources { srcDirs("src/main/configs", "src/main/misc") } } // OR another notation // main.get().resources.srcDirs("src/main/configs", "src/main/misc") } 

As mentioned by other answers, files in src/main/resources/ are automatically added to JAR. The srcDirs() function in above code adds its arguments to that existing path so files in those directories will be included in the JAR as well. You can add as many entries as you want.

Note that after adding the above code and syncing your changes with the IDE, some IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA and Android Studio show a helpful icon for those directories to indicate they are resources root directories:

A directory added as resources root in Gradle shown in IntelliJ IDEA

Comments

0

One other thing that's crucial for reading resources and isn't mentioned anywhere: they're case sensitive.

You'll get null during runtime when the case is different as the debug version doesn't use *.jar to read them, but files which are case insensitive (on Windows).

Comments

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