I’ve got a plugin that adds dependencies, for simplicity the equivalent of:

project.configurations.maybeCreate("implementation")
project.dependencies.add("implementation", project(":my:nested:child:project"))

I’m trying to create a unit test that creates a multi-project build that tests this. But I can’t seem to create a child project, that will end up with the coordinates

":my:nested:child:project"

? For example in a unit test this code here:

val subDir = File(rootProject.projectDir, "my/nested/child/project").also { it.mkdirs() }
val child = ProjectBuilder.builder()
    .withProjectDir(subDir)
    .withName("example-project")
    .withParent(rootProject)
    .build()

When I log out the child project in my plugin, it tells me the path is:

:example-project

if I change

withName

to:

.withName("my:nested:child:project")

I get the error:

The project name ‘mynestedchild:project’ must not contain any of the following characters: [/, \, :, <, >, “, ?, *, |]. Set the ‘rootProject.name’ or adjust the ‘include’ statement.

What I am I missing so that I can use the coordinates

":my:nested:child:project"

to reference my sub project? (So that my coordinates are the same as a typical

build.gradle

reference

implementation project(":my:nested:child:project")

.)

I think...you don't need to use withProjectDir

ah ok, thanks! thats interesting that each subfolder needs to be a project

That's not the case. But if you include

a:b:c

, then you effectively create three projects that happen to also live in the respective directory structure by default. But you can also include

foo

and set its project directory to

a/b/c

.

I don’t quite understand what you mean @Vampire

Why not?

What do you mean by “include” (vs the original question)

If you do

include("a:b:c")

in the settings script it is the same as doing

include("a"); include("a:b"); include("a:b:c")

. You are registering three projects

a

,

b

, and

c

that happen to live in

a/

,

a/b/

, and

a/b/c

. There is no project with name

my:nested:child:project

. There is a project with name

project

that is the child of the project

child

which is the child of the project

nested

which is the child of the project

my

. Imagine the task graph like a filesystem where

:

is the path separator.

Ok, so in the original question I am trying to recreate the gradle project structure. Therefore making each of the path segments a project sounds right?

If you don't wnat those three intermediate project, just do

include("c")

and then set the project directory of that project to be

a/b/c

. The directories don't "have to be own projects", that just the conventional default.

I see. Its interesting that the convention makes each dir a project even though they are empty directorys. I would have thought the minimal project needs a file.

No, a project needs nothing, it is treated as if the build script would be empty.

💯 thats the missing bit for it to make sense 🙂 thanks

Also in good old days it was common to configure subprojects using

subprojects { ... }

or

allprojects { ... }

blocks, so in some projects the whole build logic was just in the root project, so no build scripts needed for the individual projects.