I am getting the symlink error when i do an ant build. Searched in net and some posts suggested to download junit jar for fixing it. Downloaded junit-4.8.2.jar. Added this jar file to Classpath but still's not working. I tried to include the jar file within the build.xml but still it didn't work out.
<target name="-createDir" description="Creates logs directory">
<mkdir dir="${basedir}/${custServer}/logs" />
<symlink link="${basedir}/${custS}/application.properties" resource="${basedir}/application.properties" />
<symlink link="${basedir}/${custS}/log4j.properties" resource="${basedir}/log4j.properties" />
</target>
-createDir:
BUILD FAILED
file:/home/test1/source/teff/build.xml:28: Could not create task or type of type: symlink.
Ant could not find the task or a class this task relies upon.
ant -v
Apache Ant version 1.5.4 compiled on January 8 2005
Buildfile: build.xml
It looks like the symlink task was introduced in ant version 1.6.0.
Related
how can I tell ant to find Ivy's jar in my own lib? ant just kept looking at it's home folder even when I've explicitly told it to find the jar somewhere else.
I would recommend removing the ivy jar from the ANT home directory. (For some very odd reason it's not normally packaged with ANT).
Instead I recommend including a special task to ensure ivy is installed.
<available classname="org.apache.ivy.Main" property="ivy.installed"/>
<target name="install-ivy" description="Install ivy" unless="ivy.installed">
<mkdir dir="${user.home}/.ant/lib"/>
<get dest="${user.home}/.ant/lib/ivy.jar" src="http://search.maven.org/remotecontent?filepath=org/apache/ivy/ivy/2.4.0/ivy-2.4.0.jar"/>
<fail message="Ivy has been installed. Run the build again"/>
</target>
Analysis
The ANT manual outlines the order in which jars a loaded by ANT at startup.
-lib jars in the order specified by the -lib elements on the command line
jars from ${user.home}/.ant/lib (unless -nouserlib is set)
jars from ANT_HOME/lib
This will always happen and unfortunately it won't matter what you do inside your build file.....
Jars in the ANT_HOME/lib
In my opinion, putting jars in the ANT_HOME effectively creates a bespoke installation of ANT. It makes your projects less portable across machines, and the customizations are frequently forgotten and undocumented.
So if you have control over the build server I would recommend removing any ANT tasks your find here.
Jars in the ${user.home}/.ant/lib
Placing jars here is less objectionable for the following reasons
Directory owned by the user running the build
Can be ignored at run-time by by using the commandline option -nouserlib
The only jar I put here is ivy... All other jars exist in the ivy cache (including ANT tasks)
You can place Ivy binaries in some folder inside you project folder. For example, in my case, it's etc/build/. I put where ivy.jar and jsch.jar.
After that provide the correct namespace in project defenfition and load Ivy.
<project name="somename" basedir="." xmlns:ivy="antlib:org.apache.ivy.ant">
<target name="ivy-load">
<path id="ivy.lib.path">
<pathelement location="${basedir}/etc/build/ivy.jar"/>
<pathelement location="${basedir}/etc/build/jsch.jar"/>
</path>
<taskdef resource="org/apache/ivy/ant/antlib.xml" uri="antlib:org.apache.ivy.ant" classpathref="ivy.lib.path"/>
</target>
<target name="ivy-init" depends="ivy-load">
<ivy:settings file="${basedir}/etc/ivysettings/ivysettings.xml"/>
<ivy:resolve conf="${ivy.conf}"/>
</target>
...
</project>
I have a target named test and I want to do some tests.
I put here the important parts in build.xml. It includes:
<property name='lib.dir' value='lib' />
<path id='classpath'>
<fileset dir="${lib.dir}" includes="**/*.jar" />
</path>
And I have put the junit.jar and ant-junit.jar(is it a must?) in the lib directory.
However, if I run
ant test.
The output error is:
test:
BUILD FAILED
/home/xiaohan/EclipseWorkSpace/AntTest/build.xml:82: Problem: failed to create task or type junit
Cause: the class org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.optional.junit.JUnitTask was not found.
This looks like one of Ant's optional components.
Action: Check that the appropriate optional JAR exists in
-/usr/share/ant/lib
-/home/xiaohan/.ant/lib
-a directory added on the command line with the -lib argument
Do not panic, this is a common problem.
The commonest cause is a missing JAR.
This is not a bug; it is a configuration problem
Additionally, if I put the two jar files in /usr/share/ant/lib with the $ANT_HOME set, it still does not work.
Really thanks for any hints
In my case (using Mint, based on Debian)
sudo apt-get install ant-optional
was the only thing that worked.
The issue was solved on RHEL-based systems once ant-junit was installed:
$ sudo yum install ant-junit
<property name='lib.dir' value='lib' />
<path id='classpath'>
<fileset dir="${lib.dir}" includes="**/*.jar" />
</path>
this has nothing to do with Ant classpath itself. It is properties you can use in your tasks. You have to put jars to the suggested dirs or add command line argument.
Try running it like this:
ant -lib /path/to/the/ant-junit.jar/ test
I was seeing this message because I had missed to include the ant-junit.jar from my IDE's Classpath, e.g. in Eclipse > Right click on your project > Run as > Run Configurations.. > Classpath (tab) > Ensure the ant-junit.jar is there.
When you run JUnit tasks, you must make sure both your classpath that was used for your builds, and the path for the junit jars are added to your classpath.
I prefer to put the junit jars inside my project, so others don't have to install them in their machines for my build to work. I would install them in ${basedir}/antlib/junit
I use ${basedir}/antlib to store all the various Ant build related jars such as the Ant-Contrib jars, JaCoCo, Findbugs, etc. Since this is inside my project, a checkout will always include these jars and the build will work for everyone:
<classpath id="junit.path">
<fileset dir="${basedir}/antlib/junit"/>
</classpath>
This will create a path that contains your JUnit jars. Now to compile your junit tests:
<javac dest="${target.dir}/test-classes"
src=${src.test.java}">
<classpath refid="javac.classpath"/> <!-- Your main build classpath -->
<classpath refid="junit.path"/> <!-- Your JUnit classpath -->
<classpath path="${main.destdir}"/> <!-- These the classes you've built-->
Note that placing the JUnit jars in $ANT_HOME/lib main not work because it depends whether <javac> has includeAntRuntime set or not. It's always highly recommended not to have this set in order to make your build more platform independent.
Also remember to include that junit.path in your <junit> task too.
I wanted to have a look which system properties are set here (and to which values), so the easiest way (if not writing a new Java program here) would be adding some lines to my ant build script:
<target name="properties">
<echoproperties/>
</target>
But running ant gives my this error message:
/u/ebermann/projektoj/stackoverflow-examples/build.xml:19: Problem: failed to create task or type echoproperties
Cause: the class org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.optional.EchoProperties was not found.
This looks like one of Ant's optional components.
Action: Check that the appropriate optional JAR exists in
-/usr/share/ant/lib
-/u/ebermann/.ant/lib
-a directory added on the command line with the -lib argument
Do not panic, this is a common problem.
The commonest cause is a missing JAR.
This is not a bug; it is a configuration problem
Okay, so I don't panic, but wonder what to do.
I have Ant 1.7.1 here (an OpenSUSE system), and sadly no documentation for this version, and I'm not root to install either a current ant version or the documentation for the old version (I just downloaded it and it still does not say which jar file is needed here). Of the directories listed above, only /usr/share/ant/lib exists, but it contains nothing like optional.
I would want to download the necessary jar file and put it in my home directory, but where to find it? The ant download archive contains nothing like that, and I have no idea where else to search. (I did google a bit, but did not find anything.
So, can someone give me some pointers where to find the right jar file?
(I suppose the solution is quite easy, and something is just blocking my view.)
After vahapt's answer, I downloaded the file from the apache repository, and put it into the directory /u/ebermann/.ant/lib mentioned by the error message. Running ant properties again - the same result as above.
$ jar -tf /u/ebermann/.ant/lib/ant-nodeps-1.7.1.jar | grep 'EchoProperties.class'
org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/EchoProperties.class
This looks like it should work - is the error message simply wrong?
If I put it directly into the CLASSPATH, it works:
$ CLASSPATH=/u/ebermann/.ant/lib/ant-nodeps-1.7.1.jar ant properties
Buildfile: build.xml
properties:
[echoproperties] #Ant properties
[echoproperties] #Thu Mar 10 00:46:22 CET 2011
...
[echoproperties] user.name=ebermann
[echoproperties] user.timezone=
BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 0 seconds
I don't want to change my normal CLASSPATH variable, and it should work by putting it into this directory, or did I understand something wrong?
Any ideas, or is this an ant bug?
(Also, why is this file nowhere mentioned in the ant documentation?)
Edit:
After the answer from vahapt, my ant build-file looks like this:
<project name="stackoverflow-examples" basedir=".">
<target name="echoproperties.prepare">
<available property="echoproperties.works"
classname="org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.optional.EchoProperties"
/>
</target>
<target name="echoproperties.init"
depends="echoproperties.prepare"
unless="echoproperties.works">
<taskdef name="echoproperties" classname="org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.optional.EchoProperties">
<classpath>
<fileset dir="${user.home}/.ant/lib">
<include name="ant-nodeps.jar" />
</fileset>
</classpath>
</taskdef>
</target>
<target name="properties" depends="echoproperties.init">
<echoproperties/>
</target>
</project>
This re-registers the task only if it is not already in the ant classpath. (Thus it should also work for complete ant installations which do not have this file in the home directory).
I would still say that This is not a bug; it is a configuration problem is not totally right, even more as putting the file in the indicated directory does not help.
One more interesting observation: The nodeps.jar in ${user.home}/.ant/lib (i.e. now /u/ebermann/.ant/lib/ant-nodeps.jar) is already in the class path (the one shown by ${java.class.path}, but this seems not to help for <echoproperties> to work without this taskdef.
So, this works too:
<target name="echoproperties.init"
depends="echoproperties.prepare"
unless="echoproperties.works">
<taskdef name="echoproperties"
classname="org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.optional.EchoProperties"
classpath="${java.class.path}" />
</target>
When you make a google search, results point to ant-nodeps-1.7.1.jar
Make sure that jar exists and you've added it into the classpath
For the second part of your question:
SOLUTION 1. You do not need to modify your CLASSPATH variable. Instead you might add it by adding the parameter -cp [JAR FILE LOCATION] (-cp is for "java" executable)
SOLUTION 2. Jar files are simply zip files, open ant-nodeps.jar copy its content to ant.jar throw away ant-nodeps.jar
SOLUTION 3. See the sample below. taskdef is a ant feature that loads a jar or a class into ClassLoader hierarchy. (You load the class before using it, works like a charm)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ASCII"?>
<project name="Test" default="properties" basedir=".">
<target name="properties" depends="init">
<echoproperties/>
</target>
<target name="init">
<taskdef name="echoproperties" classname="org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.optional.EchoProperties">
<classpath>
<fileset dir="${ant.library.dir}">
<include name="ant-nodeps.jar" />
</fileset>
</classpath>
</taskdef>
</target>
</project>
I downloaded Ant 1.7.1 and looked in the documentation that came with it. There it described echoproperties as an optional task, but didn't mention where to get the jarfile for this optional task.
Looking inside the lib folder, I discovered the ant-nodeps.jar. Apparently, it was included with Ant 1.7.1.
I would recommend that you download and install Ant 1.8. Since Ant is a Java jar file, it's not really all that difficult to install the latest and greatest version.
I looked on my Mac, and /usr/bin/ant is a link to /usr/share/ant/bin and /usr/share/ant/ is a link to /usr/share/java/ant-1.8.2. So, all I have to do is point /usr/share/ant/bin/ to the correct version of Ant.
In Ant 1.8.2, echoproperties is now a standard task.
I'm trying to use the -lib option to specify a directory containing Ant tasks. But they're not loading. For example:
$ ant -lib /path/to/libraries
Buildfile: build.xml
BUILD FAILED
/path/build.xml:3: taskdef class com.oopsconsultancy.xmltask.ant.XmlTask cannot be found
The build file contains:
<project name="test">
<taskdef name="xmltask" classname="com.oopsconsultancy.xmltask.ant.XmlTask" />
</project>
This is failing on RHEL5, but the exact same thing works on several other operating systems that I've tried.
When I add the --execdebug flag, I get this:
exec "/usr/local/jdk1.6.0_20/bin/java" -classpath "/usr/share/java/ant.jar:/usr/share/java/ant-launcher.jar:/usr/share/java/jaxp_parser_impl.jar:/usr/share/java/xml-commons-apis.jar:/usr/local/jdk1.6.0_20/lib/tools.jar" -Dant.home="/usr/share/ant" -Dant.library.dir="/usr/share/ant/lib" org.apache.tools.ant.launch.Launcher -cp "" "-lib" "lib"
Any ideas?
Others seem to have the same problem on RHEL.
One workaround suggested here is to set your jar in the taskdef like so
<taskdef name="xmltask" classname="com.oopsconsultancy.xmltask.ant.XmlTask"
classpath="xmltask.jar"/>
Also see this thread which was a corrupt ant package
I'm trying to call an Antlr task in my Ant build.xml as follows:
<path id="classpath.build">
<fileset dir="${dir.lib.build}" includes="**/*.jar" />
</path>
...
<target name="generate-lexer" depends="init">
<antlr target="${file.antlr.lexer}">
<classpath refid="classpath.build"/>
</antlr>
</target>
But Ant can't find the task definition. I've put all of the following in that dir.lib.build:
antlr-3.1.jar
antlr-2.7.7.jar
antlr-runtime-3.1.jar
stringtemplate-3.2.jar
But none of those seems to have the task definition. (I've also tried putting those jars in my Ant classpath; same problem.)
The current Antlr-task jar is available at http://www.antlr.org/share/1169924912745/antlr3-task.zip
It can be found on the antlr.org website under the "File Sharing" heading.
You should use the antlrall.jar jar. You can go ahead and just drop it into your Ant installation but that does mean that it will only work for that one install. We check the jar in and use taskdef to load the jar file so that it doesn't become another step for developers when they start on the team or move to a new computer.
Antlr http://ant.apache.org/manual/Tasks/antlr.html
Using taskdef http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2004/06/02/anttask.html
I just got this working for myself. Took me an hour. ugh. anyway,
Step 1: download ant-antlr3 task from
http://www.antlr.org/share/1169924912745/antlr3-task.zip
Step 2: copy to where ant can see it. My mac:
sudo cp /usr/local/lib/ant-antlr3.jar /usr/share/ant/lib/
my linux box:
sudo cp /tmp/ant-antlr3.jar /usr/local/apache-ant-1.8.1/lib/
Step 3: make sure antlr2, antlr3, ST are in classpath. All in one is here:
http://antlr.org/download/antlr-3.3-complete.jar
Step 4: use in build.xml
<path id="classpath">
<pathelement location="${antlr3.jar}"/>
<pathelement location="${ant-antlr3.jar}"/>
</path>
<target name="antlr" depends="init">
<antlr:ant-antlr3 xmlns:antlr="antlib:org/apache/tools/ant/antlr"
target="src/T.g"
outputdirectory="build">
<classpath refid="classpath"/>
</antlr:ant-antlr3>
</target>
Just added a faq entry:
http://www.antlr.org/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=24805671
The most basic way to run Antlr is to execute the Antlr JAR:
<project default="antlr">
<target name="antlr">
<java jar="antlr-4.1-complete.jar" fork="true">
<arg value="grammar.g4"/>
</java>
</target>
</project>
This is a bit slower, because it forks the JVM and it runs Antlr even if the grammar did not change. But it works in the same way with every Antlr version and does not need any special targets.
On Ubuntu this should make it available:
sudo apt-get install ant-optional
Additional info on top of what everybody else contributed so far:
The ant-optional package in Ubuntu includes the task shipped with Ant 1.8.2 which is a task for ANTLR 2.7.2 so this will fail with an error as described in this post. The method described by Terence is the best way to use the ANTLR3 task.
If you do not have root access on a Linux machine, you can install the ant-antlr3.jar file in the Ant user directory: ~/.ant/lib. Check with ant -diagnostics whether ant-antlr3.jar is visible to Ant, as explained in this other post.
If you are using Eclipse, you will need to restart the IDE before it recognises the new task and you will also need to include antlr3.jar and stringtemplate.jar in your classpath (but ant-antlr3.jar is not necessary).