Gradle : Difference between File, FileCollection and FileTree in Gradle

Difference Between File, FileCollection and FileTree in Gradle

File	FileCollection	FileTree
File is from java.io package	FileCollection is from org.gradle.api.file package	FileTree is from org.gradle.api.file package
File represents a single file.	FileCollection represents a collection of files	FileTree represents hierarchy of files in a directory or folder.

Difference Between File, FileCollection and FileTree

Suppose we have a directory structure as shown in image below.

We can write a gradle task as shown below

task loadFiles(){
    doLast{

        File file = file('src/main/resources/sample1.txt')
        println file.name
        println "\n"

        FileCollection collection = files('src/main/resources/sample1.txt','src/main/resources/sample2.txt')
        collection.each {
            println it.name
        }
        println "\n"

        FileTree tree = fileTree('src')
        tree.each {
            println it.name
        }
    }
}

When we run the above gradle task using command gradle -q loadFiles, it will give the following output.

sample1.txt


sample1.txt
sample2.txt


sample1.txt
sample2txt
file1.properties
A.java

Read More

• How to Get a File using Relative Path
• How to Get Multiple Files using FileCollection
• How to Get all files in a Directory using FileTree