Add API for fetching binary resources with project.resources.binary helpers

[vlsi]

Expected Behavior

There should be a possibility to refer binary resources just like there's project.resources.text.

Certain data formats can't be converted to text.

For instance, XML is a binary format, not a text one, and XML might contain the encoding in the <?xml version="1.0" encoding="..."?> pragma.
That means, project.resources.fromUri("..") is not a valid option to fetch XML contents, as Gradle would somehow decode the result to text form, and there's no proper way to decode XML without fully-workable XML decoder.

I would expect an API like project.resources.binary.fromUri("https://gist.githubusercontent.com/hsz/5bf5c84a6a2e36f2a6716f28f287783c/raw/b0ba02f53f5937643701b848cb3728b0f3dfb144/updates.xml").
In that case Gradle must not re-encode the contents, and it must tread the data as binary.

Current Behavior (optional)

Currently, only project.resources.text is available

Context

JetBrains/intellij-platform-gradle-plugin#1389 (comment)

Gradle 8.1.1

[eskatos]

Thank you for your interest in Gradle!

This feature request is in the backlog of the relevant team, but this area of Gradle is currently not a focus one, so it might take a while before it gets implemented.

[Omico]

Any updates? I'm getting fucked by this issue. I should really write by myself.

[mlopatkin]

The request makes sense. However, the ResouceHandler API needs some work to integrate with the Provider API better, and we're reluctant to adding new ResourceHandler methods until this adaptation is ready.