execute task before android gradle build?

Question

is it possible to gradle to execute task before calling

gradle build

something like precompile. Someone please help. Is something like this posible and how?

Answer 1

You can do it in this way:

task build << {
    println 'build'
}
task preBuild << {
    println 'do it before build'
}
build.dependsOn preBuild

Thanks to that task preBuild will be automatically called before build task.

If you want to run preBuild in configuration phase (previous example run preBuild in execution phase) you can do it in this way:

task build << {
    println 'build'
}
build.doFirst {
    println 'do it before build'
}

More about gradle build lifecycle can be read here http://www.gradle.org/docs/current/userguide/build_lifecycle.html.