A new approach to configuration in Gradle 3.4 ends ‘dreaded’ classpath leakage
Gradle , the build system of choice for Android mobile development, has been upgraded with better support for building Java applications.
Gradle 3.4 offers fast incremental results and « the end of dreaded compile classpath leakage, » said Cedric Champeau, a software engineer who has worked on developing the tool. Changes in the upgrade can dramatically improve build times, he said.
Classpath leakage refers to elements on the classpath of a library required for compiling sources leaking to the classpath of dependent libraries or applications. To halt this problem, a separation is introduced between the « api » and « implementation » configurations, so dependent projects only see the classpath from the api configuration; hence, only the libraries necessary to use the public-facing interfaces to the library see it.
