I am not a groovy expert but would it not be better to merge this with the declaration above...
````
ext {
	expandPlaceholders = '**/quick-tour.xml'
	javadocLinks = [
		"http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api",
		"http://docs.oracle.com/javaee/6/api",
		"http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/3.1.x/javadoc-api"
	] as String[]
}
````