The source package contains all files necessary to build GRAL from scratch using the Gradle software project management and comprehension tool. Like Makefile files the build.gradle files are used by Gradle to generate various distribution or documentation files.

In case you just want to build the core of the library to get started execute the following command in the gral-core directory:

$ gradle assemble

This will generate a JAR archive named gral-core in the build/libs directory. This JAR file can be added to the class path of your application.

In case you just want to build the core of the library to get started execute the following command in the gral-examples directory:

$ gradle assemble

This will generate a JAR archive for the examples in the build/libs directory which can be used together with the library core to run example applications.

In order to build package archives like the ones available for download you have to execute the following command in the project's parent directory:

$ gradle distTar

This will create a distributions folder in the build directory of both gral-core and gral-examples containing the files gral-core-<version>.tar.bz2 or gral-examples-<version>.tar.bz2, respectively.

The GRAL Gradle project offers three sources for documentation:

1. The JavaDoc files that can be generated with:

   $ gradle javadoc
   

2. The reports found in build/reports containing a project various information like test results, test coverage, etc. To build these files just execute:

   $ gradle report
   

3. A book-like documentation in the reStructuredText format is available in the file documentation_en.rst.

The Gradle project can also be used in your favorite development environment like Eclipse or NetBeans. For further information look at the following descriptions on the Gradle website http://www.gradle.org/tooling

Once you have installed an appropriate Gradle plug-in for your IDE you will be able to import the GRAL project found in this folder.

To build GRAL from source, you need a Gradle version higher than 1.5 and at least Java 6.