How can I post-process files compiled using the Ant javac task? - ant

I need the list of files that were compiled during this run. I want to feed this list to a subsequent post-processing step.
I have found an option to list (see listfiles option) the files compiled during this run, but it seems only good for displaying the list on console.
Any idea?
Edit: I am talking about incremental compiles, so taking a fileset of the build folder is not an option.
Edit: One idea seems to be custom logger but I am still looking for something simpler
Edit: Another idea is to use depend selector with FileSet before javac and somehow keep the list in memory, to be used after javac has executed

You simply can form a fileset about all class-files in the target-directory of the javac.
Edit: After the clarification I have to adjust my answer. I didn't such thing yet, but I would try my luck with selectors. The modified-selector looks like the one you want - a fileset of all class-files in a directory, that have changed since the last run. Here is a code-snippet:
<fileset dir="${build}">
<filename name="**/*.class"/>
<modified/>
</fileset>
It does not directly post-process the output of the javac-task, but should solve your problem.

Related

Is ANT copy task case-sensitive?

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>

Dynamic basedir for Ant in Eclipse

The title might not be the best so let me explain what I am trying to do.
I have made an Ant buildfile that will help me with Maven goals. It's so much easier having to scope to Ant view and choose what I want to do. The biggest benefit with this is that I can use it in almost any project. Whether I deploy to tomcat or jboss or sakai(:deploy) or I handle mutiple instaces of the same server or skip tests... worst case I just change some path properties.
The drawback right now is that I have to keep a copy of this buildfile in every project.
What I am trying to do is have only 1 buildfile, in the workspace, and dinamicaly optain, from eclipse, the current project that I am working on. Be it module or parent I can refine that later.
So basically change the basedir for ant tasks based on the selected project in eclipse.
I have tried Ant Runtime Properties but for some reason properties like
${project_path}
fail to give me what their description say. I get this:
Variable references empty selection: ${project_path}
I hope it is clear what I am trying to do. So my question, I know it's possible, I'm just missing something and I hope some of you can help me with this.
I believe the trouble is in the Ant Runtime properties. I'm not 100% sure how I should use those.
Thank you!
EDIT after comment and further investigation..
Make the projectdir available as basedir property for ant like that :
Window > Preferences > Ant > Runtime > Properties
and create a property named basedir with value either :
${project_loc}
or
${workspace_loc}/${project_name}
and
<project basedir="${basedir}">
<echo>$${basedir} = ${basedir}</echo>
</project>
will work as expected, means echoing eclipse/yourworkspace/projectdir
Maybe there are other ways, i.e. via Ant Addon Ant4Eclipse, which aims to make Eclipse settings available for ant, never used it.

Is it possible to display the call "graph" of an ant extension-point?

I have an extension-point defined in ant :
<extension-point name="foo"/>
A lot of tasks contribute to this point in several imported ant files :
<bindtargets targets="bar" extensionPoint="foo" />
However I'm kinda lost as to exactly which tasks are contributing. Is there a way to have ant report the tasks that would be triggered by a given extension point ? More generaly, is there a way to display the "call-graph" (or simply the list of dependencies) of an ant task ?
I tried using verbose options for ant (-v and such), with no luck.
Thanks
First of all, you can try to debug the ANT process in your IDE using remote debugging by adding some parameters to ANT_OPTS (mine is set in ~/.profile):
http://blog.dahanne.net/2010/06/03/debugging-any-java-application/
And profiling may help. I found project Antro on ANT Wiki...
http://sourceforge.net/projects/antro
Maybe you can try it out. The project is said to be designed for ANT, which looks promising in solving your problem.
Also you can use Yourkit Java Profiler to do a CPU profiling. YJP can show the call graph of a java application, but I'm not sure if one can find out which are ANT targets.
The following document shows how to start a java application with YJP agent.
http://www.yourkit.com/docs/95/help/agent.jsp
I know of 2 ways to get this information:
You can get the effective target/extension-point invocation sequence from Ant's console logger. To do this, place Ant's logging facility into verbose mode by passing -verbose on the command line to Ant. There are two lines, one after the other, that dump to the console immediately before most targets as they are invoked in your build script:
A line that shows a summary of the targets in the call sequence starting with the text, Build sequence for target(s) 'artifact' is [...].
A line showing the detailed call sequence (nested targets and antcalls included). This line starts with the text, Complete build sequence is [...]. This listing considers, as much as reasonably possible, the evaluation of any if and unless attributes of each target listed at the point the line is logged to the console.
Simply invoke your Ant build as you would normally with the -verbose option and your console should have the information you're looking for.
You can get a pictorial representation of the call sequence using a tool called Grand. However, it hasn't been updated for quite some time and thus doesn't support extension-points (which is what you're concerned with here). It will interpret antcall's, ant, and depend'encies. It doesn't evaluate the if and unless attributes but simply identifies potential execution sequence - more of a dependency hierarchy than an actual call graph. The project is on Github so an update to support extension-points may not be too difficult.
The graphic is rendered using Graphviz.
For an actual call sequence, use option 1.
This is pretty sloppy, but it works. Ant is actually pretty easily scripted, and if you are using at least Java 6 (or it might be Java 7), javascript support is built in and thus can be used right out of the box. This defines a task that will echo the dependencies of any target in call order:
<scriptdef name="listdepends" language="javascript">
<attribute name="target"/>
<![CDATA[
var done = [];
var echo = project.createTask("echo")
function listdepend(t) {
done.push(t.getName());
var depends = t.getDependencies();
while (depends.hasMoreElements()) {
var t2 = depends.nextElement();
if (done.indexOf(t2)==-1) listdepend(project.getTargets().get(t2));
}
echo.setMessage(t.getName());
echo.perform();
}
var t = attributes.get("target");
if (t!=null) {
var targ = project.getTargets().get(t);
listdepend(targ);
}
]]>
</scriptdef>
In your case, you can create a new target (or not) and call it like so:
<target name="listfoo">
<listdepends target="foo"/>
</target>
As I said, this is somewhat sloppy. It probably isn't very fast (although unless your target triggers thousands of others, it probably isn't noticeably slow). It won't handle antcall tasks (although it could be modified to do so easily) or respond to if and unless attributes. If dependencies nest too far, it may hit a recursion depth limit (but I doubt any project nest them deep enough).
The array is used to make sure that each dependency is listed once (ant would only run them once).

remove relative path of a jar and keep only jar name

I Have a property file which contains list of jars from different paths like this
/gwt/X/2.1.0/gwt-servlet.jar
/gwt/X/2.1.0/gwt-user.jar
/gwt/X/2.1.0/gwt-dev.jar
/gwt/X/2.1.0/gwt-soyc-vis.jar
/log4j/X/1.2.15/log4j-1.2.15.jar
/GWT_LOG/X/3.0.3/gwt-log-3.0.3.jar
/GWT_MATH/X/2.1/gwt-math-2.1.jar
/GWT_MATH/X/2.1/gwt-math-server-2.1.jar
/GWT_Commons_Logging/X/0.3/GWT-commons-logging/gwt-commons-logging-0.3.jar
/GWT_Commons_Logging/X/0.3/GWT-commons-logging/gwt-commons-logging-service-0.3.jar
I have around 1000 jars like this in this list.
I would like to remove relative paths before jar name and out put jar names in a new file some thing like this
gwt-servlet.jar
gwt-user.jar
gwt-dev.jar
gwt-soyc-vis.jar
log4j-1.2.15.jar
gwt-log-3.0.3.jar
gwt-math-2.1.jar
gwt-math-server-2.1.jar
gwt-commons-logging-0.3.jar
gwt-commons-logging-service-0.3.jar
This is not a one time activity, so i would like to create a target or task in My build.xml for daily usage.
<replaceregexp file="file.txt" match="[^ ]*/" replace="" byline="true" flags="g"/>
Ant isn't well suited for tasks like this. It's probably much more simple to write a simple Ant Task in Java for that (or a small Java program; just create File objects and invoke getName() to get the last path element).
But if you have to: script and scriptdef are probably your friends (provided that your version of Ant is recent enough; the docs mention 1.6.3). You can call any Java method from these scripts. See the manual for examples.

Reasons for using Ant Properties files over "Properties Tasks"

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 ...

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