Allow to use Action for configuration in extensions to better support non-Groovy consumers (#187)

[Vampire]

fixes #187

[jeremylong]

LGTM

[jeremylong]

Thanks!

[chadlwilson]

How are users expected to use the Action variants in Groovy to avoid the deprecations?

Was it necessary to deprecate all the closure variants here?

[Vampire]

Without deprecation it is hard to later remove them.
And in non-dynamic languages or if the Groovy files are statically compiled, you would otherwise get trouble when later removing the Closure variants as the already compiled code would not just "switch over" like the dynamic Groovy code would do.

In Groovy you have the two possibilities to either ignore the deprecation warning, or explicitly using the Action variant.

Or you switch over to Kotlin DSL instead. By now it is the default DSL, you immediately get type-safe build scripts, actually helpful error messages if you mess up the syntax, and amazingly better IDE support when using a good IDE like IntelliJ IDEA or Android Studio. :-)

[chadlwilson]

I understand that re kotlin, but some of us have massive multi project Gradle builds and moving to kotlin is significant effort better spent elsewhere.

The question is around how to even use the action variant within groovy (the syntax). If there is no canonical (non clunky) way to do so, and if we are not deprecating support for groovy entirely, they probably shouldn't be marked as deprecated. Training folks to ignore deprecation warnings is not helpful.

Currently the documentation doesn't show folks how to use a non-deprecated approach.

[jeremylong]

Wouldn't it just be:

dependencyCheck {
    data.directory='d:/nvd'
    analyzers.assemblyEnabled=false
}

Basically just replace the {} with dot walking.

[Vampire]

Well, this plugin's documentation should imho not be a Groovy language documentation, that is up to Groovy. ;-)
It is for example

dependencyCheck {
   proxy({
      it.port = 0
   } as Action)
}

Or you use neither by doing

dependencyCheck {
   proxy.port = 0
}

Besidest that, even with

dependencyCheck {
   proxy {
      port = 0
   }
}

Gradle does not complain with a deprecation warning for me.

[jeremylong]

I really should update the docs to be kotlin at some point...

[chadlwilson]

Ahh thanks, despite many years of using Gradle it wasn't obvious to me that moving to dot syntax is what it takes to move to using the actions overloads. I guess this is the difference from the perspective of users vs Gradle plugin authors; as the closure syntax is the canonical way in Gradle-groovy to group related configration in a DSL-like syntax.

Besidest that, even with

dependencyCheck {
   proxy {
      port = 0
   }
}

Gradle doesn't complain, but IntelliJ IDEA (correctly) does, as this is passing a closure.

[Vampire]

it wasn't obvious to me that moving to dot syntax is what it takes to move to using the actions overloads.

That would be quite strange and is not what is happening as I said above.
It is another way of doing the configuration which you can use almost anywhere in Gradle.
The "scoped" / "grouped" way ist just more often used as it looks nicer usually.
In some cases the "grouped" way is different, for example as it might be evaluated lazily while dotted syntax is eager,
especially without Propertys being used, but here this is not the case, as the methods would also right away evaluate the given "group".

[chadlwilson]

it wasn't obvious to me that moving to dot syntax is what it takes to move to using the actions overloads.

That would be quite strange and is not what is happening as I said above. It is another way of doing the configuration which you can use almost anywhere in Gradle.

OK, maybe better to ignore whether it is "actions syntax" or "neither" from my comment - I'm probably better to have written it as "to move to using a non-deprecated approach". I don't actually know how Gradle DSL magic translates these syntaxes internally to bind to the overloads/extension config classes, especially when using @CompileStatic (and shouldn't really have to, as a user).