Gradle - getting the latest release version of a dependency

Question

What would be the easiest way to tell Gradle the following:

Retrieve 'junit' dependency and take its latest 'release' version.

Managing Maven and Ivy repositories is sort of new to me. I tried the following steps and they result in Could not resolve dependency ... error:

• Write compile "junit:junit:latest.release" with repositories set to only mavenCentral() (however, it works if I say "junit:junit:4.10").

• Write compile "junit:junit:latest.release" with repository set the following way:

  ivy {
      // I also tried 'http://maven.org' and other possible variants.           
      url "http://repo1.maven.org" 
      layout "maven"
  }
  

• Attempted to use Spring Source Ivy repository:

  ivy {
      artifactPattern "http://repository.springsource.com/ivy/libraries/release/[organisation]/[module]/[revision]/[artifact]-[revision].[ext]"
      ivyPattern "http://repository.springsource.com/ivy/libraries/release/[organisation]/[module]/[revision]/[artifact]-[revision].[ext]"
  }
  

Maybe I misunderstand something. Why would getting the latest version of the dependency be such a hard task?

Answer 1

It can be quite useful sometimes to get the latest release - if for example you release often your own dependencies.

You can get the latest version like

compile "junit:junit:+"

or better specify at least the major version like

compile "junit:junit:4.+"