Gradle to execute Java class (without modifying build.gradle)

Question

There is simple Eclipse plugin to run Gradle, that just uses command line way to launch gradle.

What is gradle analog for maven compile and run mvn compile exec:java -Dexec.mainClass=example.Example

This way any project with gradle.build could be run.

UPDATE: There was similar question What is the gradle equivalent of maven's exec plugin for running Java apps? asked before, but solution suggested altering every project build.gradle

package runclass;

public class RunClass {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("app is running!");
    }
}

Then executing gradle run -DmainClass=runclass.RunClass

:run FAILED

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':run'.
> No main class specified   

Answer 1

You just need to use the Gradle Application plugin:

apply plugin:'application'
mainClassName = "org.gradle.sample.Main"

And then simply gradle run.

As Teresa points out, you can also configure mainClassName as a system property and run with a command line argument.