I'm currently trying to refactor a couple of our ANT scripts and what I'd like to do is try and centralise some of the common targets they use into some kind of shared area.
The target I'm trying to work on just now is configuration. Both our scripts currently have the same code which loads in external properties and sets up our classes.
What I've tried to do is move this target into another build script called configuration.xml and call this through <ant antfile="configuration.xml"> from each script.
What's happening though is the target is running but I can't work out how I can get the values being set to return to the parent build script. Is there anyway I can do that?
Another approach I thought of was to create some kind of "base" script that the other two could inherit from. I don't think that's ideal in the long term but it's an option I thought I could try. Again though I can't find anything online to say ANT can do this.
Depends on what version of Ant you're using as to what methods you have available, but there is the <import file="your-include.xml"/> option.
Here's an example of some imports, if it helps.
http://subversion.assembla.com/svn/cfdistro/trunk/cfdistro/src/cfdistro/scm.xml
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So, at work, I frequently have to create virtually identical ant scripts. Basically the application we provide to our clients is designed to be easily extensible, and we offer a service of designing and creating custom modules for it. Because of the complexity of our application, with lots of cross dependencies, I tend to develop the module within our core dev environment, compile it using IntelliJ, and then run a basic ant script that does the following tasks:
1) Clean build directory
2) Create build directory and directory hierarchy based on package paths.
3) Copy class files (and source files to a separate sources directory).
4) Jar it up.
The thing is, to do this I need to go through the script line by line and change a bunch of property names, so it works for the new use case. I also save all the scripts in case I need to go back to them.
This isn't the worst thing in the world, but I'm always looking for a better way to do things. Hence my idea:
For each specific implementation I would provide an ant script (or other file) of just properties. Key-value pairs, which would have specific prefixes for each key based on what it's used for. I would then want my ant script to run the various tasks, executing each one for the key-value pairs that are appropriate.
For example, copying the class files. I would have a property with a name like "classFile.filePath". I would want the script to call the task for every property it detects that starts with "classFile...".
Honestly, from my current research so far, I'm not confident that this is possible. But... I'm super stubborn, and always looking for new creative options. So, what options do I have? Or are there none?
It's possible to dynamically generate ANT scripts, for example the following does this using an XML input file:
Use pure Ant to search if list of files exists and take action based on condition
Personally I would always try and avoid this level of complexity. Ant is not a programming language.
Looking at what you're trying to achieve it does appear you could benefit from packaging your dependencies as jars and using a Maven repository manager like Nexus or Artifactory for storage. This would simplify each sub-project build. When building projects that depend on these published libraries you can use a dependency management tool like Apache ivy to download them.
Hope that helps your question is fairly broad.
i have this ant build.xml file with 3 targets in it:
target1, target2 and target3.
If the user simply runs ant and not an explicit ant target1 or something like that, i want to prompt the user asking which target he would like to call.
Remember, the user should only be prompted for this only if he doesnt explicitly call a target while running ant
Ant is not a programming language, it's a dependency matrix language. There's a big difference between the two.
In a program language, you can specify the absolute order of sequence. Plus, you have a lot more flexibility in doing things. In Ant, you don't specify the execution order. You specify various short how to build this steps and then specify their dependencies. Ant automatically will figure out the execution order needed.
It's one of the hardest things for developers to learn about Ant. I've seen too many times when developers try to force execution order and end up executing the same set of targets dozens of times over and over. I recently had a build her that took almost 10 minutes to build, and I rewrote the build.xml to produce the same build in under 2 minutes.
You could use <input/> to get the user input, then use <exec> or <java> to execute another Ant process to execute the requested target. However, this breaks the way Ant is suppose to work.
The default target should be the default target that developers would want to execute on a regular basis while they program. It should not clean the build. It should not run 10 minutes of testing. It should compile any changed files, and rebuild the war or jar. That's what I want about 99% of the time. The whole process takes 10 seconds.
I get really, really pissed when someone doesn't understand this. I hate it when I type ant and I get directions on how to execute my build. I get really irritated when the default target cleans out my previous compiles. And, I get filled with the deadly desire to pummel the person who wrote the damn build file with a large blunt object if I am prompted for something. That's because I will run Ant, do something else while the build happens, then come back to that command window when I think the build is done. Nothing makes me angrier to come back to a build only to find out it's sitting there waiting for me to tell it which target.
If you really, really need to do this. Use a shell script called build.sh. Don't futz with the build.xmlto do this because that affects development.
What you really need to do is teach everyone how to use Ant:
Ant will list user executable targets when you type in ant -p. This will list all targets, and their descriptions. If a target doesn't have a description, it won't list it. This is great for internal targets that a user shouldn't execute on their own. (For example, a target that merely does some sort of test to see if another target should execute). To make this work, make sure your targets have descriptions. I get angry when the person who wrote the Ant file puts a description for some minor target that I don't want, but forgets the description of the target I do want (like compile). Don't make David angry. You don't want to make David angry.
Use default target names for your group. That way, I know what targets do what across the entire project instead of one project using BUILD vs. build-programs vs. Compile vs build-my-stuff vs. StuffBuild. We standardized on Maven lifecycle names names. They're documented and there's no arguments or debates.
Do not use <ant/> or <antcall> to enforce build order. Do not divide your build.xml into a dozen separate build.xml programs. All of these probably break Ant's ability to build a target dependency matrix. Besides, many Ant tools that show dependency hierarchy in a build and they can't work across multiple build files.
Do not wrap your builds inside a shell script. If you do this, you're probably not understanding how builds work.
The build should not update any files in my working directory that were checked out by me. It shouldn't polute my working directory with all sorts of build artifacts spread out all over the place. It shouldn't do anything outside of the working directory (except maybe do some sort of deploy, but only when I run the deploy target). In fact, all build processing should take place in a sub-directory INSIDE my working directory. A clean should merely delete this one directory. Sometimes, this is called build, sometimes dist. I usually call it target because I've adopted Maven naming conventions.
Your build script should be a build script. It shouldn't do checkouts or updates -- at least not automatically. I know that if you use CruiseControl as a continuous build process, you have to have update and checkout functionality inside your build.xml. It's one of the reasons I now use Jenkins.
Sorry about this answer not necessarily being the one you're looking for. You didn't really state what you're doing with Ant. If you're doing builds, don't do what you're trying to do. If you're writing some sort of program, use a real programming language and not Ant.
An Ant build should typically finish in under a minute or two, and redoing a build because you changed a file shouldn't take more than 30 seconds. This is important to understand because I want to encourage my developers to build with Ant, and to use the same targets that my Jenkins server uses. That way, they can test out their build the same way my Jenkins server will do the official build.
you may use the input task provided by ant and make it your default target.
<input
message="Please enter Target ID (1,2 or 3):"
validargs="1,2,3"
addproperty="targetID"
/>
Use the value of this property to decide which target to execute.
From the ant documentation:
message : The Message which gets displayed to the user during the build run.
validargs: Comma separated String containing valid input arguments. If set, input task will reject any input not defined here.
You may pass any arguments according to your needs.
addproperty : The name of a property to be created from input.Behaviour is equal to property task which means that existing
properties cannot be overridden.
Android has an ant script file with generic targets for compile, clean, etc.
Are there any open source ant scripts that define standard targets such as these for general java projects?
I don't want to bother installing and using maven, but I also don't want to bother creating and maintaining ant scripts for each project.
I'm guessing you are new to both Maven and Ant. If I'm wrong you can ignore the rest of this post :)
I don't know of any generic open source Ant files. I've never had the need to look for one. I think its well worth the effort to learn Ant and create your own generic script. Ant is easy to learn and it is a very flexible, powerful and reliable build tool. You'll find it quite easy to create a build file that you can reuse over and over again on different projects.
With regards to having to maintain Ant scripts, its a bit of a fallacy. You'll find that once you've got a script that works in a generic way you'll hardly ever have to touch it again except when you need to do things in a custom way (usually around packaging and deployment). When that happens, you'll be glad you're using a tool like Ant that gives you the flexibility to do what you want to be able to do without getting in your way.
I have an Ant script that imports several external scripts and property files which were not written by me. (It's a project that was automatically generated by the Android SDK, but that shouldn't matter.) I added a custom target to the script, but I'd like to do a better job of integrating it with the stuff that's already there. What I need is a comprehensive list of the global properties that are defined at a particular point in script execution. Is there any way to do that with Ant?
You can use the Echoproperties task.
I am using ant externally, i.e. I construct org.apache.tools.ant.Project dynamically
in my program: setup its Tasks, Targets etc., then I want to create build.xml file. How is possible? How possible export this project into ordinal ant build.xml?
I've been working with the ant codebase a lot recently, and I'm afraid I don't think this is possible.
Since you're the one generating the project in the first place, it might be easier if you generate the XML at the same time.