I'm trying to build my flex 4 project using ant. In Flash Builder 4, in project properties it's possible to set the "Framework linkage" to one of "Merged into code", "Runtime Shared Library (RSL)" or "Use SDK Default (Runtime Shared library)". How can I set the equivalent as mxmlc options in build.xml?
My current build.xml looks like this:
<target name="myapp">
<mxmlc
file="${PROJECT_ROOT}/myapp.mxml"
output="${DEPLOY_DIR}/myapp.swf"
actionscript-file-encoding="UTF-8"
keep-generated-actionscript="false"
warnings="false" optimize="true" incremental="false" >
<load-config filename="${FLEX_HOME}/frameworks/flex-config.xml"/>
<source-path path-element="${FLEX_FRAMEWORKS}"/>
<compiler.debug>true</compiler.debug>
<runtime-shared-library-path path-element="${FLEX_FRAMEWORKS}/libs/framework.swc">
<url rsl-url="framework_4.0.0.14159.swz"/>
<url rsl-url="framework_4.0.0.14159.swf"/>
</runtime-shared-library-path>
<compiler.source-path path-element="src"/>
<!-- List of external libraries -->
<compiler.source-path path-element="${MY_LIB}/src" />
<!-- List of SWC files or directories that contain SWC files. -->
<compiler.library-path dir="libs" append="true">
<include name="*.swc" />
</compiler.library-path>
<copy todir="${DEPLOY_DIR}" file="${FLEX_FRAMEWORKS}/rsls/framework_4.0.0.14159.swz"/>
<copy todir="${DEPLOY_DIR}" file="${FLEX_FRAMEWORKS}/rsls/framework_4.0.0.14159.swf"/>
</mxmlc>
</target>
I assumed that setting the runtime-shared-library-path directive and copying the framework swf, swz files into my target folder would make things work, but this does not seem to be the case.
The way I'm assessing whether this works is as follows: I use a custom preloader, and for it to work I need to have framework linkage as RSL. With "merged into code", my preloader gets stuck at a certain point and does not progress to my application swf. This is the same behavior i see when i use the above build.xml, which makes me think that the SWF is being built with framework linkage merged into code (rather than RSL linked).
A related question to this is how to determine if my swf is using RSL or not. I guess I could look at the size of the compiled output. But it seems there should be a way to tell if I'm using the external framework file or it's being bundled into the SWF somehow, without my knowledge.
This is a little tricky because the documentation is a little scarce on this. You probably need to set the following option either on the command line or a config file.
static-link-runtime-shared-libraries=false
The documentation from Adobe gives the following slightly cryptic description of what this option does.
Determines whether to compile against libraries statically or use RSLs. Set this option to true to ignore the RSLs specified by the runtime-shared-library-path option. Set this option to false to use the RSLs. The default value is true.
This option is useful so that you can quickly switch between a statically and dynamically linked application without having to change the runtime-shared-library-path option, which can be verbose, or edit the configuration files.
Here is a link to the documentation.
"About the application compiler options"
Note that from the documentation the default value is true. HOWEVER if you are loading a flex-config.xml file (default or custom) you should also check if this setting is present in that file and what it is. In my experience the default value for the frameworks/flex-config.xml is actually false. It appears however that in the example above that this may be set the other way.
(We use a different build system than ANT so I am not that familiar with the build.xml syntax you would need.)
Related
I am trying to copy a file inside my ANT build script. For example the below copy statement -
<copy file="myfile.txt" tofile="mycopy.txt"/>
My doubt is- if by mistake/chance the physical file name becomes myFile.txt or MyFile.txt or MYFILE.txt, will the above statement still work??
I am unable to find any relevant documentation for the same. Please clarify if you are aware. Thanks.
UPDATE- I am aware that if I use fileset, I will be able to use 'casesensitive' attribute of fileset. But, I'm just using the 'file' type.
At the bottom of the copy page, it mentions if a file with a different case exists in windows, it copies over it. This to me indicates it's OS dependent, hence linux would be case sensitive and Windows not so much.
https://ant.apache.org/manual/Tasks/copy.html
As you've already said, fileset allows you to control case-sensitivity.
When using the file attribute the task's copySingleFile method kicks in which uses File#exists to determine whether there is anything to copy. exists is case-sensitive on Unix-like systems and insensitive on Windows. So using the file attribute is platform dependent.
Given your doubt you probably want to use something like
<copy tofile="mycopy.txt">
<fileset file="myfile.txt" casesensitive="false"/>
</copy>
I want to use an condition property to set the property value to X if another property is defined and Y otherwise. However, I don't want the user to be able to override the condition property from the command line.
How can this be achieved?
Starting from ant 1.8 for some use cases local task may be applicable. Since a property is made local it starts with an empty value. It's scope is limited to current target, but you may pass it to subsequent targets using param argument in antcall.
Nope, you can't override a property set on the command line. At least, it's not easy to do. The whole purpose of overriding properties on the command line is to allow users to override defaults in order to make modification in the way your project builds. For example:
<property file="${basedir}/build.properties"/>
<property name="javac.debug" value="no"/>
<target name="compile">
<javac destdir="${main.destdir}"
debug="${javac.debug}">
By default, the Java code is compiled without debugging information. Maybe this is done to make jar files smaller, or faster interpretation, or maybe to make the code harder to decompile and read. Whatever reason, this build won't put debug information into the classfiles.
However, developers do want this debugging information, so they want to be able to override this setting:
$ ant -Djavac.debug=true compile
Or, they can create a build.properties file and put the value in there.
This type of issue comes up when you're not using Ant for builds. I know several sites that use Ant scripts to do deployments. I usually discourage this because Ant isn't really made for this type of thing. For example, Ant doesn't have any built in logic or loops. Once a property is set, it can't be changed. These are good ideas for a build language, but a terrible idea for a general purpose programming language.
Also, developers shouldn't be doing builds for QA or production. Those should be done by a build server that won't override defaults.
Now how to destroy this whole well thought out system and cause absolute havoc:
You can use the ant-contrib tasks in your project. Doing this will allow you to access the Ant Contrib var task to unset properties.
Download the ant-contrib.jar file (whatever the latest version is), and put it in a lib directory under your project. Then you can do this:
<project name="danger-will-robinson" default="package" basedir="."
xmlns:ac="http://ant-contrib.sourceforge.net">
<!-- Define the Ant-Contrib tasks -->
<taskdef=resource="net/sf/antcontrib/antlib.xml"
uri="http://ant-contrib.sourceforge.net">
<classpath>
<fileset dir="${basedir}/lib">
<include name="ant-contrib*.jar"/>
</fileset>
</classpath>
</taskdef>
<!-- Unset Property "foo", so you can use it -->
<ac:var name="foo" unset="true"/>
Note that the <classpath> points to the ant-contrib jar in the ${basedir}/lib directory. If you check that into your source repository, it will allow everyone who checks out your project to be able to do the build without installing the ant-contrib jar on their system.
Note that I've defined a "ac" XML namespace, so Ant-Contrib tasks won't overlap other possible third party tasks.
Properties in ant once set are immutable by design. You may overwrite an existing property with any scripting language that provides access to ant api, i.e. javascript.
JDK >= 1.6 already ships with a javascript engine, so you may use something like :
<project>
<property name="x" value="whatever"/>
<script language="javascript">
project.getProperty('x') ?
project.setProperty('foo', 'true') :
project.setProperty('foo', 'false');
</script>
<echo>$$[foo} => ${foo}</echo>
</project>
out of the box.But that won't help if someone uses ant -f yourbuild.xml -Dfoo=bla !! as userproperties (those properties defined via -Dkey=value) have a special protection.
So your requirement "..However, I don't want the user to be able to override the condition property from the command line". is not fullfilled.
But the let task from Ant addon Flaka provides the possibillity to overwrite even userproperties :
<project xmlns:fl="antlib:it.haefelinger.flaka">
<property name="x" value="whatever"/>
<!--
:= defines a new property whereas
::= overwrites any existing property
even userproperties
-->
<fl:let> foo ::= has.property['x'] ? 'true' : 'false'</fl:let>
<echo>$$[foo} => ${foo}</echo>
</project>
Run both scripts with ant -f yourbuild.xml -Dfoo=bla to see the difference.
Ant api has also method project.setUserProperty(String,String) so you may use also:
...
<script language="javascript">
project.getProperty('x') ?
project.setProperty('foo', 'true') :
project.setProperty('foo', 'false');
project.getUserProperty('x') ?
project.setUserProperty('foo', 'true') :
project.setUserProperty('foo', 'false');
</script>
...
to prevent the foo property to be set via .. -D .. and it will work even if property x is defined on commandline -Dx=whatever You have to make your choice, script task with javascript out of the box or Flaka let task
oneline solution but Flaka jar needed.
I'm currently looking to run static analysis over a pre-existing project. As the project is created and supplied by an off-site company, I cannot change the build process radically.
The project is split into a lot of sub-modules, located in various places. For other analyisi tools (JDepend, Google Testability Explorer, etc.), I have dynamically detected all build JAR files into a path element as follows:
<path id="built-libs">
<fileset dir="${overall-base}">
<include name="${some-common-base}/**/lib/*.jar" />
</fileset>
</path>
<property name="built-libs-string" refid="built-libs" />
For some tools, I use the build-libs, for others I use the string (in classpath form; x.jar;y.jar).
The trouble is, FindBugs uses a completely different format to any other;
<class location="x.jar"/>
<class location="y.jar"/>
...
Now, I could list all the JAR files manually, but then run the risk of this list going out of synch with the other tool's lists, or of introducing typos.
Another complication is that I also want to run the reports in Jenkins, in this case the extract directory for individual modules will depend on the job that has previously built the module (pipeline builds, modules extracted from SCM and built in parallel, the reporting occurring at the end of the pipline).
I could make a call out to the OS to run FindBugs, passing in the JARs in a space separated list (as in Invoking FindBugs from Ant: passing a space-separated list of files to java). However, I prefer a, Ant solution to an OS <exec... hack.
Note I know I have a similar problem for the sourcepath element, however, I'm assuming that solving the class element problem also solves the sourcepath one.
Ideally, FindBugs should be taking a resource collection rather than separate class elements. I'm not familiar with FindBugs, so I can't comment on why they have chose to go the class element route instead of a resource collection, however your comment about using exec implies that using a resource collection is a valid design alternative.
I would try rolling your own Ant macro, which invokes FindBugs directly using the java task. This should give you the control you need and avoiding the redundancy that the FindBugs Ant task would introduce.
Another option (which is an ugly hack) is to use the fileset to write a mini ant file with a FindBugs target, which you then invoke using the ant task. shudders
The Findbugs Ant task allows you to specify a filelist which can be used to specify multiple files. Quoting from the Findbugs documentation
"In addition to or instead of specifying a class element, the FindBugs
task can contain one or more fileset element(s) that specify files to
be analyzed. For example, you might use a fileset to specify that all
of the jar files in a directory should be analyzed."
Example that includes all jars at ${lib.dir}:
<findbugs home="${findbugs.home}" output="xml" outputFile="findbugs.xml" >
<auxClasspath path="${basedir}/lib/Regex.jar" />
<sourcePath path="${basedir}/src/java" />
<fileset dir="${lib.dir}">
<include name="*.jar"/>
</fileset>
</findbugs>
I'm trying to use xmltask for ant to modify a file in a subdirectory:
project/path/to/file.xml
The file refers to a DTD like this:
<!DOCTYPE data SYSTEM "mydtd.dtd">
I don't have the flexibility to change these documents.
This DTD is stored in the same subdirectory, which has always worked fine:
project/path/to/mydtd.dtd
Unfortunately, xmltask is trying to locate the dtd in my project's top-level directory, which is where my build file is located, and where I run from:
[xmltask] java.io.FileNotFoundException: /home/me/project/mydtd.dtd (The system cannot find the file specified)
I see in the xmltask documentation that I can correct this with an xmlcatalog element to tell it where to look up the file. But I need to use a dtd element, and I can only find examples for this element, not documentation; the examples show only a publicId, and if I understand XML correctly this document does not have one. I shouldn't need to specify this, anyway, right, since my document already says my DTD is stored locally and shows right where it is?
Why isn't xmltask finding the DTD correctly? What's the best way to correct or work around this situation?
An XML Catalog is the way to go here, it just needs a bit more perseverance.
As you correctly pointed out, the standard Ant <XmlCatalog> type only allows you to specify public DTD references when using the inline syntax, which is of no use to you. However, <XmlCatalog> also lets you specify a standard OASIS-syntax catalog, which is far richer, including resolving SYSTEM DTD references.
An OASIS catalog (full spec here) looks like this:
<catalog xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:entity:xmlns:xml:catalog">
<system systemId="mydtd.dtd" uri="project/path/to/mydtd.dtd"/>
</catalog>
You can then reference this catalog from the <XmlCatalog>:
<xmlcatalog refid="commonDTDs"/>
<catalogpath>
<pathelement location="path/to/oasis.catalog"/>
</catalogpath>
</xmlcatalog>
And that's that. It's a good idea to build up a reusable OASIS catalog file, and refer to it from various XML-related Ant tasks, all of which can use <XmlCatalog>.
As an alternative, it looks like I can skip the whole validation by creating a blank file with the same name as the DVD file, and then deleting the file when I am done. Odds are I am going to go that route instead of using the catalog.
xmltask isn't finding it because it is looking in the current working directory. Ant allows you to specify a base directory using the basedir attribute of the <target> element. So I suggest you try this:
<target basedir="path/to" ...>
<xmltask...
</target>
It strikes me that it is not the XML/DTD that you really have the problem with, but getting xmltask to interact with the two of them as you want.
If that fails, you could use the Ant Copy task to copy the XML and DTD to the root folder before processing with xmltask, then copying back again.
Have you tried:
<!DOCTYPE data SYSTEM "./path/to/mydtd.dtd">
? Or an absolute path?
Also, you can find <dtd> description here.
I had a similar problem where an XML file had a doctype with SYSTEM reference that could not be changed.
<!DOCTYPE opencms SYSTEM "http://www.opencms.org/dtd/6.0/opencms-modules.dtd">
I first went down the road and created a catalog file with the OASIS catalog as described above, but to be able to use external catalogs I had to include the Apache Commons Resolver 1.1 (resolver.jar) in the Ant classpath (see http://ant.apache.org/manual/Types/xmlcatalog.html).
Because I had multiple machines on which this build was supposed to run this seemed overkill, especially since xmltask worked fine if I just removed the doctype definition. I wasn't allowed to remove it permanently because the doctype was needed elsewhere.
Ultimately I used this workaround: I commented out the doctype definition using Ant's replace task, ran the xmltask, and then put the doctype back into the file.
<replace file="myxmlfile.xml">
<replacetoken><!DOCTYPE opencms SYSTEM "http://www.opencms.org/dtd/6.0/opencms-modules.dtd"></replacetoken>
<replacevalue><!-- !DOCTYPE opencms SYSTEM "http://www.opencms.org/dtd/6.0/opencms-modules.dtd" --></replacevalue>
</replace>
<xmltask .../>
<replace file="${local.opencms.webapp.webinf}/config/opencms-modules.xml">
<replacetoken><!-- !DOCTYPE opencms SYSTEM "http://www.opencms.org/dtd/6.0/opencms-modules.dtd" --></replacetoken>
<replacevalue><!DOCTYPE opencms SYSTEM "http://www.opencms.org/dtd/6.0/opencms-modules.dtd"></replacevalue>
</replace>
I'm currently working with some developers who like to set up Ant tasks that define environment specific variables rather than using properties files. It seems they prefer to do this because it's easier to type:
ant <environment task> dist
Than it is to type:
ant -propertyfile <environment property file> dist
So for example:
<project name="whatever" default="dist">
<target name="local">
<property name="webXml" value="WebContent/WEB-INF/web-local.xml"/>
</target>
<target name="remote">
<property name="webXml" value="WebContent/WEB-INF/web-remote.xml"/>
</target>
<target name="build">
<!-- build tasks here --->
</target>
<target name="dist" depends="build">
<war destfile="/dist/foo.war" webxml="${webXml}">
<!-- rest of war tasks here -->
</war>
</target>
I am finding it hard to convince them that properties files are they right way to go. I believe properties files are better because:
They provides more flexibility - if you need a new environment just add a new properties file
It's clearer what's going on - You have to know about this little "trick" to realize what they're accomplishing
Doesn't provide default values and the ability to use overrides - if they used property files they could provide defaults at the top of the project but have the ability to override them with a file
Script won't break if an environment task isn't supplied on command line
Of course all they hear is that they need to change their Ant script and have to type more on the command line.
Can you provide any additional arguments in favor of properties files over "property tasks"?
Properties tasks tightly couple the build file to environments. If your fellow developers are arguing that they "have to change their ant script" with your suggestions, why aren't they arguing about changing it every time they have to deploy to a new environment? :)
Perhaps you can convince them to allow both properties file and command-line configuration. I set up my Ant builds so that if a build.properties exists in the same directory as the build.xml, it reads it in. Otherwise it uses a set of default properties hard-coded into the build. This is very flexible.
<project name="example">
<property file="build.properties"/>
<property name="foo.property" value="foo"/>
<property name="bar.property" value="bar"/>
...
</project>
I don't provide a build.properties with the project (i.e. build.properties is not versioned in SCM). This way developers aren't forced to use the property file. I do provide a build.properties.example file that developers can reference.
Since Ant properties, once set, are immutable, the build file will use properties defined in this order:
Properties provided with -D or -propertyfile via the command line
Properties loaded from build.properties
Default properties within build.xml
Advantages of this approach:
The build file is smaller and therefore more maintainable, less bug-prone
Developers that just can't get away from setting properties at the command line can still use them.
Properties files can be used, but aren't required
The arguments you have are already pretty compelling. If those arguments haven't worked, then arguing isn't going to solve the problem. In fact, nothing is going to solve the problem. Don't assume that people are rational and will do the most practical thing. Their egos are involved.
Stop arguing. Even if you win, the resentment and irritation you create will not be worth it. Winning an argument can be worse than losing.
Make your case, then let it go. It's possible that after a while they will decide to switch to your way (because it actually is better). If that happens, they will act like it was their own idea. There will be no mention of your having proposed it.
On the other hand, they may never switch.
The only solution is to work towards a position of authority, where you can say how things are to be done.
The problem with the first solution (using ant property) is basically hardcoding.
It can be convenient when you start a project for yourself but quickly you have to remove that bad habit.
I'm using a property file close to what said robhruska except that I have committed the build.properties file directly. This way you have a default one.
In other hand, I understand I could add those default values in the build.xml. (I will probably try that in the next hours/days ;-) ).
Anyway, I really don't like the first approach and I would force those guys to follow the second one ...