Gradle C Plugin by Example

OK I figured all 3 out, and thought I would post this answer for any future readers.

Please note: This solution is really on viable for modern C programmers who:

• Want to do all development in Eclipse, taking advantage of modern IDE facilities like syntax highlighting, error, goto declaration, open call hierarchy, Eclipse's debugger, etc.; but...
• Want a modern, kick-a** build system like Gradle to do all the command-line/shell building

Furthermore, because I'm on Windows, I chose to use MinGW for my GCC provisioning, and so if you're either on *nix or Mac, or if you prefer Cygwin, you'll have to customize this solution even further.

Even furthermore, I have only verified this works with Eclipse Luna, using the latest Eclipse CDT plugin (8.6) and using Gradle 2.3.

Solution

First I had to correct my usage of the C plugin, changing my build.gradle to look like this:

apply plugin: 'c'
apply plugin: 'eclipse'

model {
    components {
        derpus(NativeExecutableSpec) {
            sources {
                c(CSourceSet) {
                    source {
                        srcDir "src/derpus/c"
                        include "**/*.c"
                    }
                    exportedHeaders {
                        srcDir "src/derpus/headers"
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

task wrapper(type: Wrapper) {
    gradleVersion = '2.3'
}

This allowed me to run gradle wrapper without any errors.

Next, I began to find it very peculiar that the Gradle Native Binaries documentation never mentions the build invocation for compiling/building native executables. I took a wild guess that it might be leveraging Gradle's "convention over configuration" approach, and I ran gradlew build - voila! Great success. Now under derpus/build/binaries/derpusExecutable I have derpus.exe! So far, so good.

The real headache sets in when you want to now import this Gradle-managed project into Eclipse, but still have Eclipse CDT provide all the normal features of a modern C IDE.

I started off by running gradlew eclipse, which added the following files under the derpus/ project root:

• .project
• .settings/language.settings

I opened Eclipse and imported it as a project, however I got all sorts of errors, and when I hovered over #include <stdio.h> in my derpus.c file, and clicked F3, Eclipse did nothing. Clearly something was still not configured right. And so I got to hacking.

Turns out you just need to:

• Of course, first make sure the CDT plugin is installed and working correctly (doh!)
• Create a "dummy" C project in Eclipse, which will allow you to copy n' paste Eclipse CDT-generated settings/configs to your actual project
• Modify your actual .project file to include the same <buildSpec /> and <natures /> elements that were generated in the dummy project's .project file
• Copy the dummy project's .cproject file over to your actual project's root, and then open it in a text editor. You want to rename ALL instances of the dummy project's name with the name of your actual project; in my case there were 3 instances. In my case, my dummy project was literally named dummy, and my actual project is named derpus. So I had to change 3 instances of dummy to derpus in this file.
• Restart Eclipse

Your actual project will now behave exactly the same way as a C project created with the CDT plugin. Don't forget to delete you "dummy" project ;-)