Build script basics

A build script is nothing but a set of actions that execute in some predefined order and perform certain operations. In Gradle, we call these actions or group of actions a Task, which is part of the parent entity called Project. The atomic unit of execution in the Gradle build file is called a Task. The outcome of the build file might be some assets such as JAR, WAR, and so on, or it might perform certain operations such as deployment of assets and configuration of assets. Each build file that is build.gradle represents at least one project. It might contain more than one project also in case of multiproject or multimodule build. We will discuss multiproject build in Chapter 6, Working with Gradle. The execution of the build represents the execution of the Project object, which internally calls different tasks to perform the operations.

When you execute any build script, Gradle instantiates the org.gradle.api.Project object for the build file and gives an implicit project...