IntelliJ IDEA and Gradle - Cannot be applied to '(groovy.lang.Closure)'

Question

I have a Gradle file which, whenever I load open it in IntelliJ IDEA 14.1.5, shows IDE errors for the entire file. Namely all the errors seem to be either:

java.lang.String errors

or

groovy.lang.Closure errors

I've tried clearing the file's contents and only writing the top line:

group 'com.me.blah'

but even that results in an error.

For context's sake - this is an individual module in a larger SpringBoot project. This module is a set of simple static files (with Gradle for CSS compilation, static analysis, etc), while the rest are Java modules, and are not having Gradle issues.

Can anyone think why IntelliJ would be struggling to understand this Gradle file?

score 57 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 16 '16 at 19:19

57

I've noticed this often. When creating a new project and using the 'Gradle' template, IntelliJ seems to get it all wrong. So what I've resorted to doing is after creating a new project, delete the .idea and .iml files and re-open the project directly from the Gradle file. IntelliJ seems to better understand what is going on in this case.

answered Feb 16 '16 at 19:19

Jon Nichols

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This worked to fix the above error, but it deleted all of my configuration, so the project structure and modules were not stored. Instead, I found that this worked: https://stackoverflow.com/a/49543980/7267809 – Aanand Kainth Apr 12 '18 at 04:05
17

For the sake of clarity, "re-open the project directly from the Gradle file" means: [Open] > Select `build.gradle` > [Open as Project] – noobar Sep 27 '19 at 01:42

score 32 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 12 '18 at 12:52

32

For the first part of the question: group is a property, so there must be an assignment, not a function call. The right code is:

group = 'com.me.blah'

edited Apr 12 '18 at 12:52

Rusty Shackleford

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answered Mar 28 '18 at 20:52

Beholder

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For those that may ask the question, "then why does `group 'com.me.blah'` work?," take a look at Groovy's [`methodMissing` hook](http://groovy-lang.org/metaprogramming.html#_methodmissing). The default Gradle `Project` implementation apparently uses this hook to set the property with the name of the missing method, if it exists. – Rusty Shackleford Apr 12 '18 at 01:02
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This results in `Cannot assign 'String' to 'Object'` for me. – PHPirate Nov 24 '18 at 09:57

FGreg · Answer 3 · 2016-05-31T15:19:16.670

19

I found this suggestion in the IDEA bug tracker(IDEA-142683):

Workaround:
One can add a comment such as
//noinspection GroovyAssignabilityCheck
to suppress the warning, but this should not be necessary as these are standard every day Gradle usages.

This issue was recently updated and is marked fixed, ready for release with version 2016.2 release.

edited May 31 '16 at 15:19

answered Apr 04 '16 at 22:12

FGreg

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It should be fixed in the next EAP version: https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-142683#comment=27-1448045 – MartyIX May 30 '16 at 08:36
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where do I need to add that comment? I am on 15.0.6 and it is annoying – stewenson Jun 13 '16 at 09:22
@stewenson Just put it right above the block of code that is complaining. – FGreg Jun 13 '16 at 15:28
1

It's happening again to me with version 2019.1.2 – Andres Farias Jun 15 '20 at 16:40
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I am on 2020.2 RC version and this is still happening – Dhruv garg Nov 09 '20 at 07:37

score 19 · Answer 4 · answered May 20 '18 at 19:10

19

Try File | Invalidate Caches and restart. It worked for me after i mess the syntaxe somewhere else in the file.

answered May 20 '18 at 19:10

Bancarel Valentin

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score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 02 '15 at 15:18

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For anyone looking for a similar fix, this boiled down to the type of the module. My module was defined in my .iml file as

type="WEB_MODULE"

I created a new Gradle module and pasted in the same contents, deleted the original, renamed the new module to have the same name as the old one, and everything worked fine. When I diffed the results the only change was that the .iml file now said:

type="JAVA_MODULE"

So there's the answer, seemingly. Change your module from "web" to "java".

answered Oct 02 '15 at 15:18

Seb Charrot

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This did not do the trick for me unfortunately. What did work is "Disable inspection". Not sure if that is the best way to go though. – Kees de Kooter Oct 30 '15 at 15:10
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I don't have an iml file. – Displee May 13 '19 at 09:30
@Displee it is possibly in your `.idea` directory – Jonathan E. Landrum Dec 31 '19 at 18:28

score 7 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 17 '19 at 16:24

7

For me, after trying out all this answers without result, changing the Java SDK of the project did the trick, I was on 1.8 and changed it to the newest one, but still a project level language of 8.

Hope this helps!

answered Jun 17 '19 at 16:24

Ariel Mirra

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I had this issue inside of the buildSrc directory. As I changed language level from 14 down to 8, warning went away. I don't know why java language level is interfering with the Gradle script with Groovy DSL syntax. – RenatoIvancic Jun 09 '21 at 18:45

score 6 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 06 '18 at 15:51

6

What I found is that this warning is from Groovy inspection of the Intelliji. So if your project is not pure groovy, you can disable this inspection by going to File -> settings -> Editor -> Inspections -> disable Groovy. Again, just a workaround.

answered Apr 06 '18 at 15:51

Neal Sha

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No need to disable the whole Groovy section but only 'Incompatible type assignments'. To disable this inspection: File -> Settings... -> Editor -> Inspections -> Groovy -> Assignment issues -> disable Incompatible type assignments – plamenti Aug 31 '21 at 20:51

Rajkishan Swami · Answer 8 · 2020-09-18T05:07:34.003

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Happened to me recently on windows. I tried all of the above but it didn't work.

What i did:

1 - I had JAVA_HOME environment variable already set. So IDEA picked that as project SDK and these warnings showed up.

2 - So, i removed the default JAVA_HOME from project SDK and manually added jdk path. Restarted and all warnings were gone.

Maybe it will help someone. Thanks.

edited Sep 18 '20 at 05:07

answered Sep 04 '17 at 04:56

Rajkishan Swami

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IntelliJ IDEA and Gradle - Cannot be applied to '(groovy.lang.Closure)'

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