Settings scripts and plugins should provide APIs to create RegularFile and Directory instances according to the settings layout

[eskatos]

Settings scripts and plugins can currently only access Settings.rootDir or Settings.settingsDir which return File instances. Several Gradle APIs require RegularFile or Directory instances and creating them from a File is currently not convenient.

This issue is about providing convenient APIs to Settings scripts and plugins to work with APIs that require RegularFile or Directory instances.

On example of such API is providers.fileContents(file) that expects a RegularFile.

This could be done in the same way it is currently done for Project scripts and plugins that have the ProjectLayout available.

Current Behavior

To use providers.fileContents(file) the convoluted following is currently required:

def regularFile = services.get(ObjectFactory).fileProperty().tap {
    set(new File(rootDir, "path/to/some.txt"))
}.get()
providers.fileContents(regularFile)

Note that it requires using the internal service lookup.

Expected Behavior

It should be convenient and only require public API instead, e.g.:

providers.fileContents(layout.rootDirectory.file("path/to/some.txt"))

[stale]

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[cesar1000]

I think this issue is still relevant.

[jdochez]

We need such an API to properly declare inputs to configuration cache from settings plugin.

[abstratt]

@jdochez @cesar1000 Last night's nightly has new API under Settings to retrieve a Settings-based file system layout service (SettingsLayout):

https://docs.gradle.org/nightly/javadoc/org/gradle/api/initialization/Settings.html#getLayout--

(also injectable as a service)

PTAL and let us know if it covers your use cases.

[abstratt]

This is now implemented (to be released in 8.5).

[abstratt]

The API is still WIP. Reopening.