License Gradle Plugin

This plugin will scan and adapt your source files to include a provided header, e.g. a LICENSE file. By default it will scan every source set and report warnings. It will also create format tasks, which will properly format and apply the specified header. A bulk of the logic comes from the maven-license-plugin.

This plugin will also report on the licenses of your dependencies.

Usage

In your build.gradle file add:

    buildscript {
        repositories {
            mavenCentral()
        }

        dependencies {
            classpath 'nl.javadude.gradle.plugins:license-gradle-plugin:0.7.0'
        }
    }

    apply plugin: 'license'

This will add two types of tasks for each source set (created by BasePlugin) in your project: one for checking for consistency and one to apply the header, e.g.

• licenseMain : checks for header consistency in the main source set
• licenseFormatMain : applies the license found in the header file in files missing the header
• licenseTest : checks for header consistency in the test source set

The check tasks are added to the standard Gradle check task.

This will also add a task to manage the downloading and reporting of licenses of your dependencies.

• downloadLicenses : generates reports on your runtime dependencies

License Task

The license task has a properties, most can be set in the extension:

• header -- Specify location of header to use in comparisons, default to project.file('LICENSE')
• ignoreFailures -- Prevent tasks from stopping the build, defaults to false
• dryRun -- Show what would happen if the task was run, defaults to false but also inherits from --dryRun
• skipExistingHeaders -- Skip over files that have some header already, which might not be the one specified in the header parameter, defaults to false
• useDefaultMappings -- Use a long list of standard mapping, defaults to true. See http://code.google.com/p/maven-license-plugin/wiki/Configuration#Default_mappings for the complete list
• strictCheck -- Be extra strict in the formatting of existing headers, defaults to false
• sourceSets -- List of sourceSets to create tasks for, will default to all sourceSets created by Java Plugin
• mapping(String ext, String style) -- Adds a mapping between a file extension and a style type
• mapping(Map<String,String> mappings) -- Adds mappings between file extensions and style types
• mapping(Closure) -- Adds mappings between file extensions and a style types, see example below

License Extension

A license extension is added to the project, which can be used to configure all license tasks. E.g.

license {
    header rootProject.file('codequality/HEADER')
    strictCheck true
}

Here is a general overview of the options:

• header -- Specify location of header to use in comparisons, default to project.file('LICENSE')
• ignoreFailures -- Prevent tasks from stopping the build, defaults to false
• dryRun -- Show what would happen if the task was run, defaults to false but also inherits from --dryRun
• skipExistingHeaders -- Skip over files that have some header already, which might not be the one specified in the header parameter, defaults to false
• useDefaultMappings -- Use a long list of standard mapping, defaults to true. See http://code.google.com/p/maven-license-plugin/wiki/Configuration#Default_mappings for the complete list
• strictCheck -- Be extra strict in the formatting of existing headers, defaults to false
• sourceSets -- List of sourceSets to create tasks for, will default to all sourceSets created by Java Plugin
• mapping(String ext, String style) -- Adds a mapping between a file extension and a style type
• mapping(Map<String,String> mappings) -- Adds mappings between file extensions and style types
• mapping(Closure) -- Adds mappings between file extensions and a style types, see example below

File Types

Supported by default: java, groovy, js, css, xml, dtd, xsd, html, htm, xsl, fml, apt, properties, sh, txt, bat, cmd, sql, jsp, ftl, xhtml, vm, jspx, gsp, json. Complete list can be found in SupportedFormats page of the parent project.

Recognizing other file types.

An extensive list of formats and mappings are available by default, see the SupportedFormats link above. Occasionally a project might need to add a mapping to a unknown file type to an existing comment style.

license {
    mapping {
        javascript='JAVADOC_STYLE'
    }
}
// or
license.mapping 'javascript' 'JAVADOC_STYLE'
// or directly on the task
licenseMain.mapping 'javascript' 'JAVADOC_STYLE'

Defining new comment types is not currently supported, but file a bug and it can be added.

Variable substitution

Variables in the format ${} format will be substituted, as long as they're values are provided in the extension or the task.

Copyright (C) ${year} ${name} <${email}>

Will be completed with this extension block, the key is adding them via extra properties:

license {
    ext.year = Calendar.getInstance().get(Calendar.YEAR)
    ext.name = 'Company'
    ext.email = 'support@company.com'
}
// or
licenseMain.ext.year = 2012

License Reporting

The downloadLicense task has a set of properties, most can be set in the extension:

• includeProjectDependencies -- true if you want to include the transitive dependencies of your project dependencies
• licenses -- a pre-defined mapping of a dependency to a license; useful if the external repositories do not have license information available
• aliases -- a mapping between licenses; useful to consolidate the various POM definitions of different spelled/named licenses
• excludeDependencies -- a List of dependencies that are to be excluded from reporting

A 'license()' method is made available by the License Extension that takes two Strings, the first is the license name, the second is the URL to the license.

downloadLicenses {
    ext.apacheTwo = license('Apache License, Version 2.0', 'http://opensource.org/licenses/Apache-2.0')
    ext.bsd = license('BSD License', 'http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php')
    
    includeProjectDependencies = true
    licenses = [
        (group('com.myproject.foo')) : license('My Company License'),
        'org.apache.james:apache-mime4j:0.6' : apacheTwo,
        'org.some-bsd:project:1.0' : bsd
    ]

    aliases = [
        (apacheTwo) : ['The Apache Software License, Version 2.0', 'Apache 2', 'Apache License Version 2.0', 'Apache License, Version 2.0', 'Apache License 2.0', license('Apache License', 'http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0')],
        (bsd) : ['BSD', license('New BSD License', 'http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php')]
    ]

    excludeDependencies = [
        'com.some-other-project.bar:foobar:1.0'
    ]
}