How to run an ant target from Maven2? - ant

Question

How do i run a specific target with the antrun-plugin from the command line?
mvn antrun:run doesn't make it run.
<project>
...
<build>
<plugins>
...
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>myExecution</id>
<phase>deploy</phase>
<goals>
<goal>run</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<tasks>
<ant target="myTarget" inheritRefs="true">
...
</ant>
</tasks>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
<dependencies>
...
</dependencies>
</plugin>
...
</plugins>
...
</build>
...
</project>

Answer 1

How do i run a specific target with the antrun-plugin from the command line?
To strictly answer this question, you can't, and you don't.
What you can do is either:
1. provide a plugin-level configuration
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
....
</configuration>
</plugin>
And this configuration will be used when invoking the plugin (regardless of how the plugin is invoked: from the cli, a part of the lifecycle).
2. provide an execution-level configuration (which is what you did)
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>myExecution</id>
<phase>deploy</phase>
<goals>
<goal>run</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<tasks>
<ant target="myTarget" inheritRefs="true">
...
</ant>
</tasks>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
And then invoke the phase to which the plugin is bound (deploy in this case).
3. provide an execution-level configuration for the special default-cli execution Id
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>default-cli</id>
<configuration>
<tasks>
<ant target="myTarget" inheritRefs="true">
...
</ant>
</tasks>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
As of Maven 2.2.0 (see MNG-3401), goals invoked directly from the command line can be configured in the POM separately from other plugin invocations using a special executionId called default-cli. In other words, the above configuration would be only used when invoking the plugin from the command line.
But in any case, you can't invoke a specific Ant target inside a configuration element. You could maybe mess with profiles to implement something approaching but, if you really want to go this direction, my advice would be to use Ant.
References
Guide to Configuring Default Mojo Executions

Answer 2

You can, by being sneaky.
In pom.xml:
...
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.7</version>
<configuration>
<target>
<ant target="trampoline" />
</target>
</configuration>
</plugin>
...
In build.xml:
...
<target name="trampoline">
<echo message="Executing target '${mvnAntTarget}'"/>
<antcall target="${mvnAntTarget}" />
</target>
<target name="testTarget">
<echo message="Yay, I'm a test target.."/>
</target>
....
And then, by running:
$ mvn antrun:run -DmvnAntTarget=testTarget
The Ant's testTarget will be run.

Answer 3

Refer to the example at : http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAVENUSER/Antrun+Plugin
Basically write your ant targets in a regular build.xml.
Then define a single <target> under configuration where you dynamically decide what is the buildFile name and targetName and do a
<ant andfile="${buildFile}" target="${targetName}" inheritAll="true" inheritRefs="true"/>

Answer 4

I'm not too sure that's the reason it doesn't work but the syntax you're using is deprecated. You should have something like:
<configuration>
<target name="myTarget">
<!--
Place any Ant task here. You can add anything
you can add between <target> and </target> in a
build.xml.
-->
</target>
<configuration>
More details here:
http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-antrun-plugin/usage.html