Latest spring-boot-gradle-plugin breaks Gradle maven-publish plugin

[asarkar]

After upgrading to Boot 1.5.3, all our projects are now failing with the following error message:

Error:Cannot configure the 'publishing' extension after it has been accessed.

There is some discussion about this error here and on SO. Part of the problem is that the Gradle team is "incubating" the publishing plugin for the last 3-4 years. That said, the previous versions of Spring Boot plugin didn't trigger this error and now it does, leaving us dead in the water.

Here's a Gradle file that can be used to reproduce this issue.

buildscript {
	ext {
		springBootVersion = '1.5.3.RELEASE'
	}
	repositories {
		jcenter()
	}
	dependencies {
		classpath(
				"org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-gradle-plugin:${springBootVersion}"
		)
	}
}

apply plugin: 'java'
apply plugin: 'eclipse'
apply plugin: 'org.springframework.boot'

version = '0.0.1-SNAPSHOT'
sourceCompatibility = 1.8

repositories {
	mavenCentral()
}


ext {
	springCloudVersion = 'Dalston.RELEASE'
	artifactoryUrl = 'http://doesnotexist'
}

dependencies {
	testCompile('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-test')
}

dependencyManagement {
	imports {
		mavenBom "org.springframework.cloud:spring-cloud-dependencies:${springCloudVersion}"
	}
}

apply plugin: 'maven-publish'

project.publishing.publications {
	mavenJava(MavenPublication) {
		from components.java
	}
}

def isSnapshot = project.version.toString().toLowerCase().contains('snapshot')
logger.info("Publishing project version: ${project.version}")
def artifactoryUrl = "${artifactoryUrl}/${isSnapshot ? 'libs-snapshot-local' : 'libs-release-local'}"

project.publishing.repositories {
	maven {
		credentials {
			username "whatever"
			password "shhh"
		}
		url "${artifactoryUrl}"
	}
}

[asarkar]

For what it's worth, I found a workaround. if the publishing section is enclosed in an afterEvaluate, and put after the boot plugin in the build file, it works. But the question remains, what changed between the previous version of the Boot plugin and the latest one?

[wilkinsona]

This is due to a change in the dependency management plugin that's described in this issue.

[asarkar]

@wilkinsona Thanks for your response. I think it should be documented here. Two people created bugs within a couple of weeks (one is me), that cost both you and them time, apart from the initial investigation time that's not so apparent in the bugs.
Also, I'm not sure if the tag invalid is correct. This is a valid problem caused by a change of, and yet undocumented, behavior in the tool.

[wilkinsona]

That's a fair point. Would you like to contribute a change to the documentation, @asarkar?

[asarkar]

Not soon, but may be in a couple of weeks.