How to create a collection of file collections in gradle?

Question

I am working on moving an ant project to gradle project. I have a set of file collection where to be used in as input for several tasks. This is possible in ant with .

<zipfileset id="zipfileset1" src="C:/reporter/servlet/reporter.war">
    <include name="WEB-INF/classes/**/*.class"/>
    <exclude name="WEB-INF/classes/**/*_jsp*.class"/>
</zipfileset>
<fileset id="fileset1" dir="C:/lib">
    <include name="test*.jar"/>
</fileset>
<union id="resources.reports.lib">
    <fileset refid="fileset1"/>
    <fileset id="fileset2" dir="C:/adaptors/lib">
        <include name="com*.jar"/>
    </fileset>
    <zipfileset refid="zipfileset1"/>
</union>

Is there any method in gradle equivalent to "union" in ant.

Answer 1

There is a working example here

Note that Gradle has tight integration with Ant (see here) so one option is a straight migration from the Ant code. For example:

// NOTE: this uses local dirs instead of Windows paths (e.g. C:\lib)

ant.zipfileset(id:"zipfileset1", src:"c_reporter/servlet/reporter.war") {
    include(name:"WEB-INF/classes/**/*.class")
    exclude(name:"WEB-INF/classes/**/*_jsp*.class")
}   
ant.fileset(id:"fileset1", dir:"c_lib") {
    include(name:"test*.jar")
}   
ant.union(id:"resources.reports.lib") {
    fileset(refid:"fileset1")
    fileset(id:"fileset2", dir:"c_adaptors/lib") {
        include(name:"com*.jar")
    }   
    zipfileset(refid:"zipfileset1")
}   

Per comment, an alternative -- and more Gradle-esque approach -- is: (also illustrated in the link above)

project.ext.zipFiles1 = 
zipTree("${projectDir}/c_reporter/servlet/reporter.war").matching {
    include 'WEB-INF/classes/**/*.class'
    exclude 'WEB-INF/classes/**/*_jsp.class'
}

project.ext.files1 = 
fileTree("${projectDir}/c_lib").matching {
    include 'test*.jar'
}

project.ext.files2 = 
fileTree("${projectDir}/c_adaptors/lib").matching {
    include 'com*.jar'
}

project.ext.allFiles = 
project.ext.zipFiles1.plus(project.ext.files1)
                     .plus(project.ext.files2)