Using Checkstyle's maxErrors with Gradle

build.gradle

task checkstyle(type: Checkstyle) {
    configFile rootProject.file('checkstyle.xml')
    configFile file("${project.rootDir}/code_quality_tools/checkstyle.xml")

    ignoreFailures true // Uncomment to fail where warnings > 0
    showViolations true

    source 'src'
    include '**/*.java''

    classpath = files()

    // Allow a threshold of errors. 
    // Inspired by http://bit.ly/2cCLrTr
    def maxErrors = 210 // aim to eventually reduce this to 0
    doLast {
        reports.all { report ->
            def outputFile = report.destination
            if (outputFile.exists()) {
                def count = outputFile.text.count("<error ")
                if (count > maxErrors) {
                    throw new GradleException("There were $count checkstyle warnings! For more info check $outputFile")
                }
            }
        }
    }
}