Invalid build instructions

[evanw555]

We received an email about the following error:

When I try to build the rest.li repo from source (via the command gradle clean build), I get the below error. Do you have some thoughts on what might be the issue?

> Task :buildSrc:compileGroovy FAILED
startup failed:
/home/jinm/rest.li/gradle-plugins/src/main/groovy/com/linkedin/pegasus/gradle/PegasusPlugin.groovy: 1718: The variable [property] is declared final but is reassigned
. At [1718:9]  @ line 1718, column 9.
           property = IDL_COMPAT_REQUIREMENT
           ^

/home/jinm/rest.li/gradle-plugins/src/main/groovy/com/linkedin/pegasus/gradle/tasks/CheckSnapshotTask.groovy: 111: The variable [apiFilename] may be uninitialized
. At [111:9]  @ line 111, column 9.
           apiFilename = it.name.substring(0, it.name.length() - PegasusPlugin.SNAPSHOT_FILE_SUFFIX.length()) + PegasusPlugin.IDL_FILE_SUFFIX
           ^

/home/jinm/rest.li/gradle-plugins/src/main/groovy/com/linkedin/pegasus/gradle/tasks/GenerateAvroSchemaTask.groovy: 80: The variable [avroTranslateOptionalDefault] is declared final but is reassigned
. At [80:7]  @ line 80, column 7.
         avroTranslateOptionalDefault = project.property('generator.avro.optional.default')
         ^

3 errors
FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.
* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':buildSrc:compileGroovy'.
> Compilation failed; see the compiler error output for details.
* Try:
Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output. Run with --scan to get full insights.
* Get more help at https://help.gradle.org
BUILD FAILED in 3s

The requirements as I understand from here:
https://github.com/linkedin/rest.li/wiki
are
Java 1.8+
Gradle 1.8+ or SBT 0.13.0+

I have the latest stable version of Gradle, and suitable versions of Java:
java version "1.8.0_201"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_201-b09)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.201-b09, mixed mode)
And
Gradle 5.2.1

Build time: 2019-02-08 19:00:10 UTC
Revision: f02764e074c32ee8851a4e1877dd1fea8ffb7183
Kotlin DSL: 1.1.3
Kotlin: 1.3.20
Groovy: 2.5.4
Ant: Apache Ant(TM) version 1.9.13 compiled on July 10 2018
JVM: 1.8.0_201 (Oracle Corporation 25.201-b09)
OS: Linux 4.18.0-1013-azure amd64

With the following resolution:

Thanks for the pointer. I pulled the changes, and also I realized that the command to build should actually be “./gradlew sourcesJar” rather than “gradle clean build” as it says here: https://github.com/linkedin/rest.li/wiki/Building-Rest.li-from-Source . With these changes, I was able to successfully build the code.

Task:

Verify that this is a problem, update the documentation.