How to build a WAR file with gradle?

Question

I want to build a WAR file (and then deploy it to Tomcat). So, as an exercise, I've started a new Spring Boot Project using Gradle in IDEA IntelliJ. Afterwards, I've apply the plugin in the build.gradle file, like this apply plugin: 'war' .

The problem is that when I try to run gradle war in the terminal, I get no war file! The only thing that happens is that it will generate a \build with 3 subsolders classes, resources and tmp, but there's no WAR in these.

What should I do to get a WAR file? I've watched this video, but this guy uses Maven and doesn't do advanced stuff and gets the war. I think there's got to be a way to keep it simple.

When I run gradle war --info

Initialized native services in: C:\Users\...\.gradle\native The client 
...

Task :compileJava UP-TO-DATE Resolving global dependency management for project 'deleteme' Excluding [org.apache.tomcat:tomcat-annotations-api] Excluding [] Skipping task ':compileJava' as it is up-to-date. :compileJava (Thread[Task worker for ':',5,main]) completed. Took 0.753 secs. :processResources (Thread[Task worker for ':',5,main]) started.

Task :processResources UP-TO-DATE Skipping task ':processResources' as it is up-to-date. :processResources (Thread[Task worker for ':',5,main]) completed. Took 0.003 secs. :classes (Thread[Task worker for ':',5,main]) started.

Task :classes UP-TO-DATE Skipping task ':classes' as it has no actions. :classes (Thread[Task worker for ':',5,main]) completed. Took 0.0 secs. :war (Thread[Task worker for ':',5,main]) started.

Task :war SKIPPED Skipping task ':war' as task onlyIf is false. :war (Thread[Task worker for ':',5,main]) completed. Took 0.0 secs.

gradle war should generate the war in /build/libs directory — Madhu Bhat
I know, but it isn't there. Can you try to see if this works for you? — MTZ
Can you share the logs on the terminal when you run gradle war ? — Madhu Bhat
try zipping the classes, resources and tmp folders into a single .zip file, then rename it to a .war file — mast3rd3mon

M.Ricciuti M.Ricciuti · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-13T13:34:11

I guess that you have applied the spring boot gradle plugin to your project, in addition to the war plugin ? then this behaviour is normal, since the Spring Boot plugin will disable jar and war tasks and replace these with bootWar and bootJar tasks .

With both spring boot and war plugin applied:

./gradlew war
15:35:09: Executing task 'war'...

> Task :compileJava UP-TO-DATE
> Task :processResources UP-TO-DATE
> Task :classes UP-TO-DATE
> Task :war SKIPPED

BUILD SUCCESSFUL in 0s
2 actionable tasks: 2 up-to-date
15:35:10: Task execution finished 'war'.

Note the SKIPPED message

$ ./gradlew bootWar
15:36:35: Executing task 'bootWar'...

> Task :compileJava UP-TO-DATE
> Task :processResources UP-TO-DATE
> Task :classes UP-TO-DATE
> Task :bootWar

BUILD SUCCESSFUL in 1s
3 actionable tasks: 1 executed, 2 up-to-date
15:36:37: Task execution finished 'bootWar'.

Then you will get the expected war file under build/libs.

You can still re-enable the standard jar/war tasks as explained here : https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/current/gradle-plugin/reference/html/#packaging-executable-wars-deployable (if you need to produce normal archives and not executable archives)

Regarding the Tomcat issue: install Tomcat 8.5.

How to build a WAR file with gradle?

3 Answers