gradle parent pom like feature

Solution 1:

To share stuff within multiple projects of the same build, use allprojects { ... }, subprojects { ... }, etc. Also, extra properties (ext.foo = ...) declared in a parent project are visible in subprojects. A common idiom is to have something like ext.libs = [junit: "junit:junit:4.11", spring: "org.springframework:spring-core:3.1.0.RELEASE", ...] in the top-level build script. Subprojects can then selectively include dependencies by their short name. You should be able to find more information on this in the Gradle Forums.

To share logic across builds, you can either write a script plugin (foo.gradle), put it up on a web server, and include it in builds with apply from: "http://...", or write a binary plugin (a class implementing org.gradle.api.Plugin), publish it as a Jar to a repository, and include it in builds with apply plugin: ... and a buildscript {} section. For details, see the Gradle User Guide and the many samples in the full Gradle distribution.

A current limitation of script (but not binary) plugins is that they aren't cached. Therefore, a build will only succeed if it can connect to the web server that's serving the plugin.

As to your second question (which should have been a separate question), there are a couple of third-party release plugins available, for example https://github.com/townsfolk/gradle-release.

Solution 2:

The io.spring.dependency-management plugin allows you to use a Maven bom to control your build's dependencies:

buildscript {
  repositories {
    mavenCentral()
  }
  dependencies {
    classpath "io.spring.gradle:dependency-management-plugin:0.5.3.RELEASE"
  }
}

apply plugin: "io.spring.dependency-management"

Next, you can use it to import a Maven bom:

dependencyManagement {
  imports {
    mavenBom 'io.spring.platform:platform-bom:1.1.1.RELEASE'
  }
}

Now, you can import dependencies without specifying a version number:

dependencies {
  compile 'org.springframework:spring-core'
}

Solution 3:

I think the best way to do things like maven parent pom is to to use gradle "apply from".
Something like this：

allprojects { // or: subprojects { ... }
    apply from: "gradle/script/common.gradle"
}

The link and be a related path or an URL. Hope it helps.

Reference:
Import a Gradle script from the root into subprojects
Super POM, Parent POM type of hierarchy management in Gradle