ant/WHATSNEW

Changes from Ant 1.2 to the current sources
===========================================

Changes that could break older environments:
--------------------------------------------

* Ant doesn't search for the buildfile anymore, unless you use the new
  -find argument.

* <perforce> has been replaced by a number of new tasks.

* <javac> is now implemented using a factory. This makes extending
  javac to use a new compiler a lot easier but may break custom
  versions of this task that rely on the old implementation.

* The output generated by the xml formatter for <junit> has changed a
  little, it doesn't append " sec" in the time attribute anymore.

Other changes:
--------------

* A GUI Frontend: Antidote. This is currently in development.

* New tasks: stylebook, propertyfile, depend, antlr, telnet, csc,
  ilasm, apply, javah, several clearcase tasks, junitreport

* Added output attribute to <java>.

* Added nested zipfileset element to <zip>

* Changed <sql> so that printing is at the task level rather than 
  the statement level.
  
* javadoc task will pass -d flag to any doclet if the destDir attribute is
  given. If the doclet does not accept the -d flag then omit the destdir
  attribute.

* <cab> can work on non-Windows platforms with the help of libcabinet. 
  See http://trill.cis.fordham.edu/~barbacha/cabinet_library/.

* <ftp> now supports passive mode.

* New <mapper> data type that can be used to get influence on the
  target files for some tasks like <copy> or enable new types of tasks
  like <apply>.

* <execon> provides more control over the command line now, the names
  of the source files are no longer required to be at the end of the
  command.

* Style tasks will now support TraX compliant XSL processors if one is present
  in your classpath.  

* Ant now prints a warning when an attempt is made to use a property which has
  not been set. Any build files which rely on non-set properties being passed
  through untranslated will now break.
  
* Added a failonerror to the javac task. If set to false, the build will 
  continue even if there are compilation errors.
  
* Added nested format elements to the tstamp task allowing additional time 
  formats to be defined for arbitrary properties.   

* Added classpath attribute and nested classpath element to <property>
  to make the resource attribute more powerful.

* ${} property expansion will now be performed on the patterns read
  from files specified as includesfile or excludesfile attributes.

Fixed bugs:
-----------

* <signjar> doesn't use deprectated methods anymore.

* javadoc's failonerror attribute works again

* Changed <sql> task so that printing result sets works on Oracle

* Changes to ddcreator and ejbc helper to respect the descriptor hierarchy
  keppgenerated in ejbc can now be turned off
  
* ejbjar now correctly ignores <ejb-ref> elements in the deployment descriptor.
  CMP files are included by parsing the weblogic deployment descriptor rather 
  than relying on the naming convention used in ant 1.2
  Include super classes and super interfaces into the generated ejb jar files
  <support> nested element allows support classes to be included in the EJB jar

* <vssget> now correctly deals with spaces in arguments

* <jar> fails early if a given manifest file doesn't exist

* <rmic> doesn't search for the _Skel file anymore when stubversion is
  set to 1.2.

* <rmic> uses the the same classpath to verify a class can be rmic'd
  as it passes to the compiler. 

* org.apache.tools.mail.MailMessage (and therefore <mail>) can now
  handle SMTP servers sending multi line responses.

* nested <classpath> elements of <taskdef> now work for <taskdef>s not
  nested into <target> as well.

* <property> and <available> will search for the resource "foo" instead
  of "/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/foo" when given a relative resource
  name foo.
  
* Handle build files in directories whose name contained a "#" character

* <junit> can now log to files whose name contains a comma as well. 

Changes from Ant 1.1 to Ant 1.2
===============================

Changes that could break older environments:
--------------------------------------------

* Semantics of <property> has changed again in the hope to be more
intuitive. ${} expansion now happens at runtime and <property> tags
living inside of targets only take effect if they are visited at
runtime.

As a side effect of this change, task's attributes get set at runtime
not at parser time as well, which might change the results of
<script>s or other custom tasks that reference other tasks by their id
attribute.

* copying of support files in <javac> has been removed - as well as
the filtering attribute.

* the <expand> and <keysubst> tasks have been removed.

* the ignore and items attributes of directory based tasks have been removed.

* the command line switches _not_ starting with - have been removed.

* Path and EnumeratedAttribute have been moved from
org.apache.tools.ant to org.apache.tools.ant.types.

* the class attributes of <available>, <java>, <rmic> and <taskdef>
have been removed.

* the src attribute of <chmod> has been removed.

* <patch> and <javadoc> have lost some of their attributes.

* <java> and <cvs> have lost some undocumented attributes.

* the Unix antRun script would search for command.sh in the directory
it changed to and invoke this instead of command if present. This
behavior has been dropped.

* <ejbjar> task syntax has been changed significantly

* <exec> is no longer implemented by org.apache.tool.ant.taskdefs.Exec. 
Custom tasks that rely on Project.createTask("exec") to return an
instance of this class are going to fail.

* nested <include> and <exclude> elements expect the value of their
name attribute to be a single pattern, they don't accept multiple
patterns anymore. Split them into multiple elements of the same type.

* <delete dir="somedir" /> will now delete the directory itself as
well as all included files. If you just want to clean out the
directory and keep the empty one, use a nested fileset.

Other changes:
--------------

* New tasks: antstructure, cab, execon, fail, ftp, genkey, jlink,
junit, sql, javacc, jjtree, starteam, war, unwar, uptodate,
native2ascii, copy, move, mparse.

* copydir, copyfile, deltree and rename are now deprecated. They
should be replaced with the new copy, delete and move tasks.

* <java> uses a ClassLoader of its own in no-fork mode if a classpath is
specified.

* <style> will create the necessary target directories and reprocess
all files if the stylesheet changes.

* New data types fileset and patternset - expected to get a broader use.
They, as well as PATH like structures, can now be defined on a global
level and later be referenced by their id attribute.

* You can specify environment variables to <exec>.

* <get> can check whether a remote file is actually newer than a local
copy before it starts a download (HTTP only).

* Added a -logger option to allow the class which performs logging to be 
specified on the command line.

* Added a -emacs option to tell the logger to leave out taskname adornments
on log output.

* <chmod> works on all files in parallel and supports multiple filesets.

* <replace> can now use tokens and/or values that cross line boundaries.

* build.compiler supports now jvc as well.

* project specific help can now be obtained with the -projecthelp option.

* Added a -debug option to make -verbose less verbose (and more useful)

* Ant will now search for a file named build.xml in the parent directory
and above (towards the root of the filesystem) if you didn't specify
-buildfile and there is no build.xml in the current directory.

* <echo> can now write to a file and accepts nested text.

Fixed bugs:
-----------

* <chmod> didn't work when used as a directory based task.

* Path, Available, Property didn't resolve relative filenames with
respect to the Project's basedir.

* Project didn't interpret the basedir attribute correctly in all
cases.

* Nested <src> in <javac> caused NullPointerException.

* Corrupt Zip- and Jar-files ar now deleted if the task fails.

* many more fixes we've forgotten to document here ...