gradle: copy war to tomcat directory

The WAR task is aware of the artifacts it generates.

task deployToTomcat(type: Copy) {
    from war.archivePath
    into "${tomcatHome}/webapps"
}

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 :-)

I accomplished this with:

task deploy (dependsOn: war){
    copy {
        from "build/libs"
        into "C:/dev/jetty-distribution-9.1.4.v20140401/webapps"
        include "*.war"
    }
}

running it like this:

gradle deploy