Resolve versions in a java-platfom project

[anuraaga]

I usually manage dependency versions in a repo with many Gradle projects by having one java-platform project that uses dependencies.constraints to force versions in other projects. Currently, I usually run dependencyUpdates on the entire repo, meaning for all the subprojects, but it would be convenient to be able to just run :project-bom:dependencyUpdates to resolve updates to the constraint dependencies. Is this a feature that's appropriate for this plugin?

[ben-manes]

You can apply the plugin only to the bom project if you prefer. Does that work?

[anuraaga]

Since enforcing versions in a bom project uses dependencies.constraints instead of dependencies, I don't think the plugin is able to pick up the dependencies to process (it does find transitive bom dependencies, which are specified in the normal dependencies block). I suspect it's a pretty small change to look at constraints when it's present, wanted to confirm it makes sense as a change :)

[jmfayard]

If I remember correctly, the Gradle team suggested to refactor the plug-in to have one dependency task per project and then merge their results at the end? Is that correct @ben-manes
If so, what you propose would be really welcome, but also maybe non trivial

[ben-manes]

@jmfayard yes, though I think the ask is to look at another property as well for a configuration to evaluate. The per project task is different in that they are changing best practices from 1.x days to improve parallelism and caching. Here I think it’s just applying to a sub project and evaluating dependencies differently.

@anuraaga you can give it a shot. Gradle changes so much that I don’t know anymore what is good or bad practices. It would seem like a potentially confusing addition in other cases, so I don’t know if it’s a good or bad addition.