adding absolute path but keeping relative paths intact - ant

hi i have an existing ant script build.xml that has all the paths as relative paths.
I was wondering if i could add a line or somewhere that will allow me to add an absolute path so that i can leave the relative paths intact and work?
i tried adding basedir="C:\Work\" to <project> but it doesnt work.
for example,
in my build.xml i have:
<exec executable="Build\file.exe">
and this build\file.exe is located in C:\Work\build\file.exe. However, if i use a console application to run C:\Work\ant.bat which will trigger my build.xml (ant script) and this
<exec executable="Build\file.exe">
would not function. Hence i would like to add a absolute path to my script so that i can keep all my relative paths intact. Anybody knows of any possible ways to do it?

Assuming all the problem paths are used in exec as you have shown, you could resolve this by setting your PATH environment variable to the full path to the dir containing Build, e.g.
set PATH=C:\Work;%PATH%
This way, the operating system will resolve the path for you.
However, it might be simpler to use a text editor to do a global find/replace so you can use an absolute path in your build file, e.g.
<property name="build.tools.dir" value="C:/Work"/>
<exec executable="${build.tools.dir}/Build/file.exe"/>

Related

ant target doesn't exist but gets executed

i have never seen this strange -
i am into maintenance project where i got a build.xml and i never installed ant. ant is bundled into the project and so i use -
ant deploy_project.
but when i look at build.xml i cannot find any target named "deploy_project".
can anyone help me how the "deploy_project" target gets executed without this target being present in build.xml?
I suspect that since i didn't install ant by myself and is bundled with the project, any configuration of ant may have been overridden...but how to find it is where i am stuck, can any one pls help me?
(I am sure the target isn't present in build.xml).
thanks much in advance.
Run the following command:
$ ant -p
This will usually print out all the targets in your build.xml. Or at least the ones with descriptions.
Also look for <import file="..."> statements in your build.xml. These allow you to import other Ant build files which can contain targets that aren't in your build.xml. I suspect, if you do a search for the string deploy_project in your build.xml, and you can't find a target by that name, you have an import statement somewhere in your build.xml, so search for <import.
If you are SURE that the target is not present, and you are not specifying the build file with -f option, then only 1 explanation I can think of -
your ANT_HOME is somewhere else and there will be another build.xml there.
(Quickest way to check is find it - SET for Windows echo $PATH for Unix), find the value for ANT_HOME and in the same directory, a build.xml will be present with your *INVISIBLE* target
If you have searched the C: drive and still cannot find any build.xml, then the bundled ANT you have might be a customized one or an ANT wrapper. Meaning have a .bat file called ant.bat which accepts deploy_project as an argument and then maps it to another task using variable substitution. So look for a batch file ant.bat or anything titled ant.

How to set the ant working directory for an ant file within IntelliJ?

Surely this must be easy. But nothing on the ant file config dialogs inside of intellij (10.5) has anything to do with working directories...
Thanks.
There is no way to configure it. Normally your script should be using paths relative to itself or some property.

using ant script to exceute a batch file

this is a batch file that i have. It is located in C:\Work\6.70_Extensions\Lab Tools\ folder.
ANT.BAT:
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;.;c:\JavaMail\javamail-1.3\mail.jar;c:\JavaMail\javamail-1.3\mailapi.jar;c:\JavaMail\javamail-1.3\pop3.jar;c:\JavaMail\javamail-1.3\smtp.jar;c:\JavaMail\jaf-1.0.2\activation.jar
CALL "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\bin\vcvars32.bat"
#echo on
%ANT_HOME%\bin\ant -logger org.apache.tools.ant.listener.MailLogger -q -buildfile "Master Build.xml"
pause
along with ant.bat, i have a Master Build.xml file located inside the same folder.
When i double click on ant.bat, it will execute the Master Build.xml ant script properly.
However, whenever i try to use another application to open the batch file's absolute path, it always state that Master Build.xml file does not exist!
I tried to open the absolute path using both console application and another ANT Script(via Cruisecontrol framework) but both gives the same error. What is the error here?
for your information here is what ive done with cruisecontrol:
create config.xml (to set intervals for builds)
create nightbuild.xml (so that config.xml will go into it to perform required tasks)
nightbuild.xml will run several console applications to sort files, checkout files from version control etc
lastly, nightbuild.xml will execute ant.bat file to execute the build
These files, config.xml and nightbuild.xml are found in C:\build
When you execute from a directory other than the one containing Master Build.xml, Ant will fail to find the build file, which it expects to be in the current working directory.
You could set an additional environment variable to specify the path to the build file, e.g.
%ANT_HOME%\bin\ant -buildfile "%MASTER_BUILD%\Master Build.xml"
If you set your variable to an absolute path (e.g. C:\Work\6.70_Extensions\Lab Tools) then it will always work. If you use a relative path (e.g. .\Lab Tools), then it will only work if executed from the relative root dir.
(BTW, life will probably be easier if you use buildfiles without spaces in their names, e.g. master_build.xml rather than Master Build.xml).

TeamBuild, Code Coverage & testrun config files

I have team build script for CI and nightly builds, both of which runs unit tests with code coverage. I have specified the testrun config file and this include paths for the assemblies to instrument.
My problem is, the paths for the assemblies is absolute, eg:
<CodeCoverageItem
binaryFile="C:\build\Product\PROJECT\Integration\Binaries\Debug\BlahBlah.Cache.dll"
pdbFile="C:\build\Product\PROJECT\Integration\Binaries\Debug\BlahBlah.Cache.pdb"
instrumentInPlace="true" />
I would rather these used relative paths or I could specify $(OutDir) in there.
Has anyone solved this?
Thanks
Yes, you should be able to use relative paths - paths that are relative to the LocalTestRun.testrunconfig file (which is typically stored in the same folder as the solution file).

Working with ant namespace / directory structure

I'm working with ant on linux using the command line. I've got a simple build step with javac. This compiles correctly but it creates a directory structure under build like my namespace.
ie: ./build/com/crosse/samplespace/SampleProgram.class
How can I get this output into one directory (where it's easier to call java on it).
I tried
<target name="output" depends="compile">
<copy todir="${output}">
<fileset dir="${build}" includes="**/*.class"/>
</copy>
</target>
but that repeats the same thing in my output directory. How can I use ant to get everything into a single directory?
Alternatively how could I use an ant step to copy another file into the root of that path (an apache commons configuration file)?
Edit: This is mainly a convenience factor, I get tired of navigating through the same 3 directories to run my program.
What about creating a jar file containing all your files (classes and other resources)?
A jar also has a 'default' class the main method of which gets executed when the user double clicks it or calls it using java -jar <jar-file>.
You can use the Ant jar task.
Beside that, it is important that you keep your directory structure (outside a jar), otherwise the java class loader won't be happy when it has to load these classes. Or did I get your question wrong?
To answer your question, you would use a flatten mapper, as carej points out. The copy task even has a shortcut for it:
<copy todir="${output}" flatten="yes">
<fileset dir="${build}" includes="**/*.class"/>
</copy>
However, I also don't understand what you hope to accomplish with this. The java runtime expects class files to be in a directory structure that mirrors the package structure. Copying the class files to the top-level directory won't work, unless the classes are in the default package (there is no package statement in the .java files).
If you want to avoid having to manually change directories, you can always add a target to your ant build file that calls the java task with the appropriate classpath and other parameters. For example:
<target name="run" depends="compile">
<java classname="com.crosse.samplespace.SampleProgram"
classpath=".:build"/>
</target>
You can accomplish what you want to do by using the flattenmapper but I'm at a loss to understand what possible valid reason you'd have for doing it.

Resources