Make groovy script grab a jar off the filesystem like grape

Grape seems to work fairly well for adding jars to your classpath. It also does a lot of other things such as fetching and dependency management. e.g.

#!/home/robert/bin/groovy

import org.apache.commons.lang.StringUtils

@Grab(group='commons-lang', module='commons-lang', version='2.4')

def strings = ['Hello', 'Groovy', 'AVeryLongWord!', 'A simple sentence']
strings.each { String aString ->
    println "$aString: ${StringUtils.abbreviate(aString,10)}"
}

Unfortunately if there is a jar on my filesystem that I want to dynamically add to the filesystem then I have to resort to a much uglier solution.

#!/home/robert/bin/groovy

def loader = this.class.classLoader.rootLoader
loader.addURL(new File("/home/robert/somejars/arithmetic-1.1.jar").toURI().toURL())

// can't use traditional package import
arithmeticMainClass = Class.forName("org.scharp.arithmetic.Main")

println "42 - 23 = " + arithmeticMainClass.subtract(42, 23)

// can't use "new" operator
myArithmeticObject = arithmeticMainClass.newInstance()

Is there a way to make grape grab a jar from the filesystem? If not, can I somehow replicate what grape is doing in groovy/java?

I would like this solution to work for scripts that can be run by many users and many incompatible jars so adding jars to a common directory such as ~/.groovy/lib/ won't work.

I could create a local maven repository for local, jar libaries but that seems like overkill.

Solution

There's been some interest in adding this feature to grape but nothing serious. My guess is that it's unlikely that this will be added in the near future. (6-18 months)