This is an Android Gradle plugin for working with GLSL. It faciliates development by allowing you to incorporate GLSL as a source file instead of as a raw resource or a sticky ball of concatenated strings. With this plugin you control where the glsl files reside, and by keeping them out of the project's res/ folder you avoid exposing your raw shader code to production. Also, IDE plugins like glsl4idea can help you during development.

Inspired by Manabu-GT's plugin, this from-scratch implementation uses Android Gradle features such as JavaGeneratingTask. Java is ultimately generated using Sun's CodeModel.

The plugin scans configurable locations for GLSL files and outputs a Java class for each. A generated class encapsulates a string constant named code containing the raw shader source. You pass that string to the GPU when compiling shaders.

For example, a file named MyVertexShader.glsl results in a class named MyVertexShader, which you could use as follows:

    // create a shader of desired type
    int shader = GLES20.glCreateShader(GLES20.GL_VERTEX_SHADER);

    // Add the source code to the shader and compile it
    GLES20.glShaderSource(shader, MyVertexShader.code);
    GLES20.glCompileShader(shader);

The plugin is availble through plugins.gradle.org

Add the following to the root build.gradle in your Android project:

buildscript {
  repositories {
    maven {
      url "https://plugins.gradle.org/m2/"
    }
  }
  
  dependencies {
    classpath "gradle.plugin.ca.goeiebook.gradle:neat-glsl:0.4.0"
  }
}

And then for each module with GLSL code, add the following to the build.gradle:

apply plugin: "ca.goeiebook.gradle.neat-glsl"

sourceSets {
        main {
            // Specify where to look for glsl files.
            glsl.srcDir 'src/main'
        }
    }

    neatGlslConfig {
        // This is the package name used for the generated Java classes.
        outputPackage "com.the_desired.package_name.for.generated.glsl"
    }
}