1. groovy, the Groovy command

groovy invokes the Groovy command line processor. It allows you to run inline Groovy expressions, and scripts, tests or application within groovy files. It plays a similar role to java in the Java world but handles inline scripts and rather than invoking class files, it is normally called with scripts and will automatically call the Groovy compiler as needed.

The easiest way to run a Groovy script, test or application is to run the following command at your shell prompt:

> groovy MyScript.groovy

The .groovy part is optional. The groovy command supports a number of command line switches:

Short version Long version Description Example

-a

--autosplit <splitPattern>

split lines using splitPattern (default '\s') using implicit 'split' variable

-b

--basescript <class>

Base class name for scripts (must derive from Script)

-c

--encoding <charset>

specify the encoding of the files

-cp <path>

-classpath <path>
--classpath <path>

Specify the compilation classpath. Must be the first argument.

groovy -cp lib/dep.jar MyScript

--configscript <path>

Advanced compiler configuration script

groovy --configscript config/config.groovy src/Person.groovy

-D

--define <name=value>

define a system property

-d

--debug

debug mode will print out full stack traces

--disableopt <optlist>

disables one or all optimization elements.
optlist can be a comma separated list with the elements:
all (disables all optimizations),
int (disable any int based optimizations)

-e <script>

specify an inline command line script

groovy -e "println new Date()"

-h

--help

Displays usage information for the command line groovy command

groovy --help

-i <extension>

modify files in place; create backup if extension is given (e.g. '.bak')

-l <port>

listen on a port and process inbound lines (default: 1960)

-n

process files line by line using implicit 'line' variable

-p

process files line by line and print result (see also -n)

-v

--version

display the Groovy and JVM versions

groovy -v

-pa

--parameters

Generates metadata for reflection on method parameter names on JDK 8 and above. Defaults to false.

groovy --parameters Person.groovy

-pr

--enable-preview

Enable preview Java features (jdk12+ only).

groovy --enable-preview Person.groovy