Building arara

arara is a Kotlin application licensed under the New BSD License, a verified GPL-compatible free software license, and the source code is available in the project repository at GitLab. This chapter provides detailed instructions on how to build our tool from source.

# Requirements

In order to build our tool from source, we need to ensure that our development environment has the minimum requirements for a proper compilation. Make sure the following items are available:

- On account of our project being hosted at GitLab, an online source code repository, we highly recommend the installation of `git`, a version control system for tracking changes in computer files and coordinating work on those files among multiple people. Alternatively, you can directly obtain the source code by requesting a source code download in the repository. In order to check if `git` is available in your operating system, run the following command in the terminal (version numbers might vary):

      $ git --version
      git version 2.50.0

  Please refer to the git project website in order to obtain specific installation instructions for your operating system. In general, most recent Unix systems have `git` installed out of the shelf.

- Our tool is written in the Kotlin programming language, so we need a proper Java Development Kit, a collection of programming tools for the Java platform. Our source code is known to be compliant with several vendors, including Oracle, OpenJDK, and Azul Systems. In order to check if your operating system has the proper tools, run the following command in the terminal (version numbers might vary):

      $ javac -version
      javac 21.0.7

  The previous command, as the name suggests, refers to the `javac` tool, which is the Java compiler itself. The most common Java Development Kit out there is from Oracle. However, several Linux distributions (as well as some developers, yours truly included) favour the OpenJDK vendor, so your mileage may vary. Please refer to the corresponding website of the vendor of your choice in order to obtain specific installation instructions for your operating system.

- As a means to provide a straightforward and simplified compilation workflow, arara relies on Gradle, a software project management and comprehension tool. Gradle is a build tool just like ours with a much more comprehensive build framework to provide support for the JVM ecosystem. In order to check if `gradle`, the Gradle binary, is available in your operating system, run the following command in the terminal (version numbers might vary):

## $ gradle --version

## Gradle 8.14.2

Build time: 2025-06-05 13:32:01 UTC Revision: 30db2a3bdfffa9f8b40e798095675f9dab990a9a

Kotlin: 2.0.21 Groovy: 3.0.24 Ant: Apache Ant(TM) version 1.10.15 compiled on August 25 2024 Launcher JVM: 24.0.1 (Red Hat, Inc. 24.0.1+9) Daemon JVM: /usr/lib/jvm/java-24-openjdk (no JDK specified, using current Java home) OS: Linux 6.15.3-200.fc42.x86_64 amd64

      Please refer to the Gradle [project website](https://gradle.org) in order to
      obtain specific installation instructions for your operating system. In
      general, most recent Linux distributions have the Gradle binary, as well the
      proper associated dependencies, available in their corresponding
      repositories.

    * For a proper repository cloning, as well as the first Gradle build, an active
    Internet connection is required. In particular, Gradle dynamically downloads
    Java libraries and plug-ins from one or more online repositories and stores
    them in a local cache. Be mindful that subsequent builds can occur offline,
    provided that the local Gradle cache exists.

    arara can be easily built from source, provided that the aforementioned
    requirements are available. The next section presents the compilation details,
    from repository cloning to a proper Java archive generation.

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    # Compiling the tool

    ## Fetching the sources

    First and foremost, we need to clone the project repository into our development
    environment, so we can build our tool from source. The cloning will create a
    directory named `arara/` within the current working directory, so remember to
    first ensure that you are in the appropriate directory. For example:

    ```sh
    $ mkdir git-projects
    $ cd git-projects

Run the following command in the terminal to clone the arara project:

    $ git clone https://gitlab.com/islandoftex/arara.git

Wait a couple of seconds (or minutes, depending on your Internet connection) while the previous command clones the project repository hosted at GitLab. Be mindful that this operation pulls down every version of every file for the history of the project. Fortunately, the version control system has the notion of a shallow clone, which is a more succinctly meaningful way of describing a local repository with history truncated to a particular depth during the clone operation. If you want to get only the latest revision of everything in our repository, run the following command in the terminal:

    $ git clone https://gitlab.com/islandoftex/arara.git --depth 1

This operation is way faster than the previous one, for obvious reasons.

## Building the executable

Unix terminals typically start at `HOME` as working directory, so, if you did not `cd` to another directory (as in the earlier example), the newly cloned `arara/` directory is almost certain to be accessible from that level. Now, we need to navigate to the directory named `arara/`. Run the following command in the terminal:

    $ cd arara

The previous command should take us inside the `arara/` directory of our project, where the source code and the corresponding build file are located. Let us make sure we are in the correct location by running the following command in the terminal:

    $ ls build.gradle.kts
    build.gradle.kts

Great, we are in the correct location! From the previous output, let us inspect the directory contents. The `cli/` directory, as the name suggests, contains the source code of the main command-line application organized in an established package structure, whereas `build.gradle.kts` is the corresponding Gradle build file written to efficiently compile the project. In order to build our tool, run the following command in the terminal:

    $ ./gradlew :cli:build

Alternatively, you can also run the following command in the terminal:

    $ ./gradlew build

Gradle is based around the central concept of a build life cycle. The compile phase, as the name suggests, compiles the source code of the project using the underlying Java compiler. After compiling, the code can be packaged, tested and run. The `build` target actually compiles, tests and packages our tool. Afterwards, you will have a `cli/build/libs/` directory with multiple JAR files, one containing `with-deps`. That file is ready to run as it bundles all dependencies. Subsequent builds will be significantly faster than the first build because they do not fetch dependencies and rely on a build cache. Finally, after some time, Gradle will output the following message as result (please note that the entire compilation and packaging only took 4 seconds on my development machine due to an existing local cache):

    BUILD SUCCESSFUL in 4s
    15 actionable tasks: 15 up-to-date

## Executing the fresh build

Now, let us move the resulting Java archive file from that particular directory to our current directory. Run the following command in the terminal (please note that the Java archive file was also renamed during the move operation):

    $ mv cli/build/libs/arara-cli-with-deps-*.jar arara.jar

Now, our current directory contains the final `arara.jar` Java archive file properly built from source. This file can be safely distributed and deployed, as seen later on, in Deploying. You can also test the resulting file by running the following command in the terminal:

    $ java -jar arara.jar
    Usage: arara [<options>] <file>...

        __ _ _ __ __ _ _ __ __ _
       / _` | '__/ _` | '__/ _` |
      | (_| | | | (_| | | | (_| |
       \__,_|_|  \__,_|_|  \__,_|

      The cool TeX automation tool.

      arara executes the TeX workflow you tell it to execute. Simply specify your
      needs within your TeX file and let arara do the work. These directives
      feature conditional execution and parameter expansion.

    Options:
      -l, --log                     Generate a log output
      -v, --verbose / -s, --silent  Print the command output
      -n, --dry-run                 Go through all the motions of running a
                                    command, but with no actual calls
      -S, --safe-run                Run in safe mode and disable potentially
                                    harmful features. Make sure your projects uses
                                    only allowed features.
      -w, --whole-file              Extract directives in the file, not only in the
                                    header
      -p, --preamble=<text>         Set the file preamble based on the
                                    configuration file
      -t, --timeout=<int>           Set the execution timeout (in milliseconds)
      -L, --language=<text>         Set the application language
      -m, --max-loops=<int>         Set the maximum number of loops (> 0)
      -d, --working-directory=<path>
                                    Set the working directory for all tools
      -P, --call-property=<value>   Pass parameters to the application to be used
                                    within the session.
      -F, --properties-file=<path>  Pass a properties file to the application to be
                                    used within the session.
      --generate-completion=(bash|zsh|fish)
                                    Generate a completion script for arara. Add
                                    'source <(arara --generate-completion <shell>)'
                                    to your shell's init file.
      -V, --version                 Show the version and exit
      -h, --help                    Show this message and exit

    Arguments:
      <file>  The file(s) to evaluate and process

The following optional Gradle phase is used to handle the project cleaning, including the complete removal of the `build/` directory. As a result, the project is then restored to the initial state without any generated Java bytecode. Run the following command in the terminal:

    $ ./gradlew clean

This section covered the compilation details for building arara from source. The aforementioned steps are straightforward and can be automated in order to generate snapshots and daily builds. If you run into any issue, please let us know. Happy compilation!