InstallBuildDevShellManually.md

Installing a Build Shell manually

In case you do not wish to depend on the gradle-groovysh-plugin for any reason, here is how you can obtain the same results:

configurations {
  // for gradle shell experiment
  addToClassLoader {extendsFrom compile}
}

dependencies {
  // for gradle shell experiment
  addToClassLoader "jline:jline:1.0"
}

/** Gradle shell experiment */

URLClassLoader loader = GroovyObject.class.classLoader
configurations.addToClassLoader.each {File file ->
  loader.addURL(file.toURL())
}

task('buildShell') {
  // This task is useful for learning gradle and making changes to the gradle files
  group 'help'
  description 'Runs an interactive shell for gradle. Experimental.'
  doFirst {
    if (getProperty('org.gradle.daemon') == 'true') {
      throw new IllegalStateException('Do not run shell with gradle daemon, it will eat your arrow keys.')
    }
  }
  doLast {
    def shell = new org.codehaus.groovy.tools.shell.Groovysh()
    shell.interp.context.variables.put("project", this)
    shell.run()
  }
}

Remember that this will give you a shell for the Groovy version of Gradle (e.g. Groovy 1.8.6 for Gradle 1.12), which is much less usable than the latest Groovy shell.