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  162. <div class="main">
  163. <div class="content">
  164. <h1 class="title">Frequently Asked Questions</h1>
  165. <h3 class="section">Questions</h3>
  166. <h4 class="toc">About this FAQ</h4>
  167. <ul>
  168. <li><a href="#latest-version">
  169. Where do I find the latest version of this
  170. document?
  171. </a></li>
  172. <li><a href="#adding-faqs">
  173. How can I contribute to this FAQ?
  174. </a></li>
  175. <li><a href="#creating-faq">
  176. How do you create the HTML version of this
  177. FAQ?
  178. </a></li>
  179. </ul>
  180. <h4 class="toc">General</h4>
  181. <ul>
  182. <li><a href="#what-is-ant">
  183. What is Apache Ant?
  184. </a></li>
  185. <li><a href="#ant-name">
  186. Why do you call it Ant?
  187. </a></li>
  188. <li><a href="#history">
  189. Tell us a little bit about Ant's history.
  190. </a></li>
  191. </ul>
  192. <h4 class="toc">Installation</h4>
  193. <ul>
  194. <li><a href="#no-gnu-tar">
  195. I get checksum errors when I try to extract the
  196. <code>tar.gz</code> distribution file. Why?
  197. </a></li>
  198. </ul>
  199. <h4 class="toc">How do I ...</h4>
  200. <ul>
  201. <li><a href="#adding-external-tasks">
  202. How do I add an external task that I've written to the
  203. page "External Tools and Task"?
  204. </a></li>
  205. <li><a href="#passing-cli-args">
  206. How do I pass parameters from the command line to my
  207. build file?
  208. </a></li>
  209. <li><a href="#jikes-switches">
  210. How can I use Jikes-specific command-line
  211. switches?
  212. </a></li>
  213. <li><a href="#shell-redirect-1">
  214. How do I include a &lt; character in my command-line arguments?
  215. </a></li>
  216. <li><a href="#shell-redirect-2">
  217. How do I redirect standard input or standard output
  218. in the <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code> task?
  219. </a></li>
  220. <li><a href="#batch-shell-execute">
  221. How do I execute a batch file or shell script from Ant?
  222. </a></li>
  223. <li><a href="#multi-conditions">
  224. I want to execute a particular target only if
  225. multiple conditions are true.
  226. </a></li>
  227. <li><a href="#encoding">
  228. How can I include national characters like German
  229. umlauts in my build file?
  230. </a></li>
  231. <li><a href="#use-zip-instead-of-jar">
  232. How do I use <code>jar</code>'s <code>M</code> switch?
  233. I don't want a MANIFEST.
  234. </a></li>
  235. </ul>
  236. <h4 class="toc">It doesn't work (as expected)</h4>
  237. <ul>
  238. <li><a href="#always-recompiles">
  239. Why does Ant always recompile all my Java files?
  240. </a></li>
  241. <li><a href="#defaultexcludes">
  242. I've used a <code>&lt;delete&gt;</code> task to
  243. delete unwanted SourceSafe control files (CVS files, editor
  244. backup files, etc.), but it doesn't seem to work; the files
  245. never get deleted. What's wrong?
  246. </a></li>
  247. <li><a href="#stop-dependency">
  248. I have a target I want to skip if a property is set,
  249. so I have <code>unless="property"</code> as an attribute
  250. of the target, but all the targets this target
  251. depends on are still executed. Why?
  252. </a></li>
  253. <li><a href="#include-order">
  254. In my <code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>, I've put in an
  255. <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> of all files followed by an
  256. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> of just the files I want, but it
  257. isn't giving me any files at all. What's wrong?
  258. </a></li>
  259. <li><a href="#properties-not-trimmed">
  260. <code>ant</code> failed to build my program via javac
  261. even when I put the needed jars in an external
  262. <code>build.properties</code> file and reference them by
  263. <code>pathelement</code> or <code>classpath refid</code>.
  264. </a></li>
  265. <li><a href="#winzip-lies">
  266. Ant creates WAR files with a lower-case
  267. <code>web-inf</code> or JAR files with a lower-case
  268. <code>meta-inf</code> directory.
  269. </a></li>
  270. </ul>
  271. <h4 class="toc">Ant and IDEs/Editors</h4>
  272. <ul>
  273. <li><a href="#integration">
  274. Is Ant supported by my IDE/Editor?
  275. </a></li>
  276. <li><a href="#emacs-mode">
  277. Why doesn't (X)Emacs/vi/MacOS X's project builder
  278. correctly parse the error messages generated by Ant?
  279. </a></li>
  280. </ul>
  281. <h4 class="toc">Advanced Issues</h4>
  282. <ul>
  283. <li><a href="#dtd">
  284. Is there a DTD that I can use to validate my build
  285. files?
  286. </a></li>
  287. <li><a href="#xml-entity-include">
  288. How do I include an XML snippet in my build file?
  289. </a></li>
  290. <li><a href="#mail-logger">
  291. How do I send an email with the result of my build
  292. process?
  293. </a></li>
  294. <li><a href="#listener-properties">
  295. How do I get at the properties that Ant was running
  296. with from inside BuildListener?
  297. </a></li>
  298. </ul>
  299. <h4 class="toc">Known Problems</h4>
  300. <ul>
  301. <li><a href="#remove-cr">
  302. &lt;chmod&gt; or &lt;exec&gt; doesn't work in Ant
  303. 1.3 on Unix
  304. </a></li>
  305. <li><a href="#javadoc-cannot-execute">
  306. JavaDoc failed: java.io.IOException: javadoc: cannot execute
  307. </a></li>
  308. <li><a href="#delegating-classloader">
  309. &lt;style&gt; or &lt;junit&gt; ignores my
  310. &lt;classpath&gt;
  311. </a></li>
  312. <li><a href="#winxp-jdk14-ant14">
  313. When running Ant 1.4 on Windows XP and JDK 1.4, I get
  314. various errors when trying to <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code>, fork
  315. <code>&lt;java&gt;</code> or access environment
  316. variables.
  317. </a></li>
  318. <li><a href="#1.5-cygwin-sh">
  319. The <code>ant</code> wrapper script of Ant 1.5 fails
  320. for Cygwin if <code>ANT_HOME</code> is set to a Windows style
  321. path.
  322. </a></li>
  323. <li><a href="#1.5.2-zip-broken">
  324. <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> is broken in Ant 1.5.2.
  325. </a></li>
  326. </ul>
  327. <h3 class="section">Answers</h3>
  328. <p class="faq">
  329. <a name="latest-version"></a>
  330. Where do I find the latest version of this
  331. document?
  332. </p>
  333. <p>The latest version can always be found at Ant's homepage
  334. <a href="http://ant.apache.org/faq.html">http://ant.apache.org/faq.html</a>.</p>
  335. <p class="faq">
  336. <a name="adding-faqs"></a>
  337. How can I contribute to this FAQ?
  338. </p>
  339. <p>The page you are looking it is generated from
  340. <a href="http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs.cgi/~checkout~/ant/xdocs/faq.xml">this</a>
  341. document. If you want to add a new question, please submit
  342. a patch against this document to one of Ant's mailing lists;
  343. hopefully, the structure is self-explanatory.</p>
  344. <p>If you don't know how to create a patch, see the patches
  345. section of <a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/site/source.html">this
  346. page</a>.</p>
  347. <p class="faq">
  348. <a name="creating-faq"></a>
  349. How do you create the HTML version of this
  350. FAQ?
  351. </p>
  352. <p>We use
  353. <a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity/anakia.html">Anakia</a>
  354. to render the HTML version from the original XML file.</p>
  355. <p>The Velocity stylesheets used to process the XML files can
  356. be found in the <code>xdocs/stylesheets</code> subdirectory of
  357. Ant's CVS repository - the build file
  358. <code>docs.xml</code> at the top level of the ant CVS
  359. module is used to drive Anakia.</p>
  360. <p>This file assumes that you have the
  361. <code>jakarta-site2</code> CVS module checked out as well, but
  362. if you follow the instruction from Anakia's homepage, you
  363. should get it to work without that. Just make sure all
  364. required jars are in the task's classpath.</p>
  365. <p class="faq">
  366. <a name="what-is-ant"></a>
  367. What is Apache Ant?
  368. </p>
  369. <p> Ant is a Java-based build tool. In theory, it is kind of
  370. like Make, without Make's wrinkles and with the full
  371. portability of pure Java code.</p>
  372. <p class="faq">
  373. <a name="ant-name"></a>
  374. Why do you call it Ant?
  375. </p>
  376. <p>According to Ant's original author, James Duncan
  377. Davidson, the name is an acronym for "Another Neat
  378. Tool".</p>
  379. <p>Later explanations go along the lines of "ants
  380. do an extremely good job at building things", or
  381. "ants are very small and can carry a weight dozens of times
  382. their own" - describing what Ant is intended to
  383. be.</p>
  384. <p class="faq">
  385. <a name="history"></a>
  386. Tell us a little bit about Ant's history.
  387. </p>
  388. <p>Initially, Ant was part of the Tomcat code base, when it was
  389. donated to the Apache Software Foundation. It was
  390. created by James Duncan Davidson, who is also the original
  391. author of Tomcat. Ant was there to build Tomcat, nothing
  392. else.</p>
  393. <p>Soon thereafter, several open source Java projects realized
  394. that Ant could solve the problems they had with Makefiles.
  395. Starting with the projects hosted at Jakarta and the old Java
  396. Apache project, Ant spread like a virus and is now the build
  397. tool of choice for a lot of projects.</p>
  398. <p>In January 2000, Ant was moved to a separate CVS module and
  399. was promoted to a project of its own, independent of
  400. Tomcat, and became Apache Ant.</p>
  401. <p>The first version of Ant that was exposed to a larger audience
  402. was the one that shipped with Tomcat's 3.1 release on 19 April
  403. 2000. This version has later been referred to as Ant
  404. 0.3.1.</p>
  405. <p>The first official release of Ant as a stand-alone product was
  406. Ant 1.1, released on 19 July 2000. The complete release
  407. history:</p>
  408. <table class="ForrestTable" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="4">
  409. <tr>
  410. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  411. valign="top" align="left">
  412. Ant Version
  413. </th>
  414. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  415. valign="top" align="left">
  416. Release Date
  417. </th>
  418. </tr>
  419. <tr>
  420. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  421. valign="top" align="left">
  422. 1.1
  423. </td>
  424. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  425. valign="top" align="left">
  426. 19 July 2000
  427. </td>
  428. </tr>
  429. <tr>
  430. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  431. valign="top" align="left">
  432. 1.2
  433. </td>
  434. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  435. valign="top" align="left">
  436. 24 October 2000
  437. </td>
  438. </tr>
  439. <tr>
  440. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  441. valign="top" align="left">
  442. 1.3
  443. </td>
  444. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  445. valign="top" align="left">
  446. 3 March 2001
  447. </td>
  448. </tr>
  449. <tr>
  450. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  451. valign="top" align="left">
  452. 1.4
  453. </td>
  454. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  455. valign="top" align="left">
  456. 3 September 2001
  457. </td>
  458. </tr>
  459. <tr>
  460. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  461. valign="top" align="left">
  462. 1.4.1
  463. </td>
  464. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  465. valign="top" align="left">
  466. 11 October 2001
  467. </td>
  468. </tr>
  469. <tr>
  470. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  471. valign="top" align="left">
  472. 1.5
  473. </td>
  474. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  475. valign="top" align="left">
  476. 10 July 2002
  477. </td>
  478. </tr>
  479. <tr>
  480. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  481. valign="top" align="left">
  482. 1.5.1
  483. </td>
  484. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  485. valign="top" align="left">
  486. 3 October 2002
  487. </td>
  488. </tr>
  489. <tr>
  490. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  491. valign="top" align="left">
  492. 1.5.2
  493. </td>
  494. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  495. valign="top" align="left">
  496. 3 March 2003
  497. </td>
  498. </tr>
  499. <tr>
  500. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  501. valign="top" align="left">
  502. 1.5.3
  503. </td>
  504. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  505. valign="top" align="left">
  506. 9 April 2003
  507. </td>
  508. </tr>
  509. <tr>
  510. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  511. valign="top" align="left">
  512. 1.5.4
  513. </td>
  514. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  515. valign="top" align="left">
  516. 12 August 2003
  517. </td>
  518. </tr>
  519. </table>
  520. <p class="faq">
  521. <a name="no-gnu-tar"></a>
  522. I get checksum errors when I try to extract the
  523. <code>tar.gz</code> distribution file. Why?
  524. </p>
  525. <p>Ant's distribution contains file names that are longer
  526. than 100 characters, which is not supported by the standard
  527. tar file format. Several different implementations of tar use
  528. different and incompatible ways to work around this
  529. restriction.</p>
  530. <p>Ant's &lt;tar&gt; task can create tar archives that use
  531. the GNU tar extension, and this has been used when putting
  532. together the distribution. If you are using a different
  533. version of tar (for example, the one shipping with Solaris),
  534. you cannot use it to extract the archive.</p>
  535. <p>The solution is to either install GNU tar, which can be
  536. found <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/tar.html">here</a>,
  537. or use the zip archive instead (you can extract it using
  538. <code>jar xf</code>).</p>
  539. <p class="faq">
  540. <a name="adding-external-tasks"></a>
  541. How do I add an external task that I've written to the
  542. page "External Tools and Task"?
  543. </p>
  544. <p>Join and post a message to the dev or user mailing
  545. list (one list is enough), including the following
  546. information:</p>
  547. <ul>
  548. <li>the name of the task/tool</li>
  549. <li>a short description of the task/tool</li>
  550. <li>a Compatibility: entry stating with which version(s) of
  551. Ant the tool/task is compatible to</li>
  552. <li>a URL: entry linking to the main page of the tool/task</li>
  553. <li>a Contact: entry containing the email address or the URL
  554. of a webpage for the person or list to contact for issues
  555. related to the tool/task. <strong>Note that we'll add a
  556. link on the page, so any email address added there is not
  557. obfuscated and can (and probably will) be abused by robots
  558. harvesting websites for addresses to spam.</strong></li>
  559. <li>a License: entry containing the type of license for the
  560. tool/task</li>
  561. </ul>
  562. <p>The preferred format for this information is a patch to <a href="http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs.cgi/~checkout~/ant/xdocs/external.xml">this</a>
  563. document.</p>
  564. <p class="faq">
  565. <a name="passing-cli-args"></a>
  566. How do I pass parameters from the command line to my
  567. build file?
  568. </p>
  569. <p>Use properties. Using <code>ant
  570. -D<em>name</em>=<em>value</em></code> lets you define values for
  571. properties on the Ant command line. These properties can then be
  572. used within your build file as
  573. any normal property: <code>${<em>name</em>}</code> will put in
  574. <code><em>value</em></code>.</p>
  575. <p class="faq">
  576. <a name="jikes-switches"></a>
  577. How can I use Jikes-specific command-line
  578. switches?
  579. </p>
  580. <p>A couple of switches are supported via "magic"
  581. properties:</p>
  582. <table class="ForrestTable" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="4">
  583. <tr>
  584. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  585. valign="top" align="left">
  586. switch
  587. </th>
  588. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  589. valign="top" align="left">
  590. property
  591. </th>
  592. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  593. valign="top" align="left">
  594. default
  595. </th>
  596. </tr>
  597. <tr>
  598. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  599. valign="top" align="left">
  600. +E
  601. </td>
  602. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  603. valign="top" align="left">
  604. build.compiler.emacs
  605. </td>
  606. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  607. valign="top" align="left">
  608. false == not set
  609. </td>
  610. </tr>
  611. <tr>
  612. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  613. valign="top" align="left">
  614. +P
  615. </td>
  616. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  617. valign="top" align="left">
  618. build.compiler.pedantic
  619. </td>
  620. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  621. valign="top" align="left">
  622. false == not set
  623. </td>
  624. </tr>
  625. <tr>
  626. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  627. valign="top" align="left">
  628. +F
  629. </td>
  630. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  631. valign="top" align="left">
  632. build.compiler.fulldepend
  633. </td>
  634. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  635. valign="top" align="left">
  636. false == not set
  637. </td>
  638. </tr>
  639. <tr>
  640. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  641. valign="top" align="left">
  642. <strong>(Only for Ant &lt; 1.4; replaced by the
  643. <code><strong>nowarn</strong></code>
  644. attribute of the <code><strong>&lt;javac&gt;</strong></code>
  645. task after that.)</strong><br />-nowarn
  646. </td>
  647. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  648. valign="top" align="left">
  649. build.compiler.warnings
  650. </td>
  651. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  652. valign="top" align="left">
  653. true == not set
  654. </td>
  655. </tr>
  656. </table>
  657. <p>With Ant &gt;= 1.5, you can also use nested
  658. <code>&lt;compilerarg&gt;</code> elements with the
  659. <code>&lt;javac&gt;</code> task.</p>
  660. <p class="faq">
  661. <a name="shell-redirect-1"></a>
  662. How do I include a &lt; character in my command-line arguments?
  663. </p>
  664. <p>The short answer is "Use: <code>&amp;lt;</code>".</p>
  665. <p>The long answer is that this probably won't do what you
  666. want anyway (see <a href="#shell-redirect-2">the next
  667. section</a>).</p>
  668. <p class="faq">
  669. <a name="shell-redirect-2"></a>
  670. How do I redirect standard input or standard output
  671. in the <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code> task?
  672. </p>
  673. <p>Say you want to redirect the standard output stream of the
  674. <code>m4</code> command to write to a file, something
  675. like:</p>
  676. <pre class="code">
  677. shell-prompt&gt; m4 foo.m4 &gt; foo
  678. </pre>
  679. <p>and try to translate it into</p>
  680. <pre class="code">
  681. &lt;exec executable=&quot;m4&quot;&gt;
  682. &lt;arg value=&quot;foo.m4&quot;/&gt;
  683. &lt;arg value=&quot;&amp;gt;&quot;/&gt;
  684. &lt;arg value=&quot;foo&quot;/&gt;
  685. &lt;/exec&gt;
  686. </pre>
  687. <p>This will not do what you expect. The output redirection is
  688. performed by your shell, not the command itself, so this
  689. should read:</p>
  690. <pre class="code">
  691. &lt;exec executable=&quot;/bin/sh&quot;&gt;
  692. &lt;arg value=&quot;-c&quot; /&gt;
  693. &lt;arg value=&quot;m4 foo.m4 &amp;gt; foo&quot; /&gt;
  694. &lt;/exec&gt;
  695. </pre>
  696. <p>Note that you must use the <code>value</code> attribute of
  697. <code>&lt;arg&gt;</code> in the last element, in order to have
  698. the command passed as a single, quoted argument. Alternatively,
  699. you can use:</p>
  700. <pre class="code">
  701. &lt;exec executable=&quot;/bin/sh&quot;&gt;
  702. &lt;arg line='-c &quot;m4 foo.m4 &amp;gt; foo&quot;'/&gt;
  703. &lt;/exec&gt;
  704. </pre>
  705. <p>Note the double-quotes nested inside the single-quotes.</p>
  706. <p class="faq">
  707. <a name="batch-shell-execute"></a>
  708. How do I execute a batch file or shell script from Ant?
  709. </p>
  710. <p>On native Unix systems, you should be able to run shell scripts
  711. directly. On systems running a Unix-type shell (for example, Cygwin
  712. on Windows) execute the (command) shell instead - <code>cmd</code>
  713. for batch files, <code>sh</code> for shell scripts - then pass the
  714. batch file or shell script (plus any arguments to the script)
  715. as a single command, using the <code>/c</code> or
  716. <code>-c</code> switch, respectively. See
  717. <a href="#shell-redirect-2">the above section</a>
  718. for example <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code> tasks
  719. executing <code>sh</code>. For batch files, use something like:</p>
  720. <pre class="code">
  721. &lt;exec dir=&quot;.&quot; executable=&quot;cmd&quot; os=&quot;Windows NT&quot;&gt;
  722. &lt;arg line=&quot;/c test.bat&quot;/&gt;
  723. &lt;/exec&gt;
  724. </pre>
  725. <p class="faq">
  726. <a name="multi-conditions"></a>
  727. I want to execute a particular target only if
  728. multiple conditions are true.
  729. </p>
  730. <p>There are actually several answers to this question.</p>
  731. <p>If you have only one set and one unset property to test,
  732. you can specify both an <code>if</code> and an <code>unless</code>
  733. attribute for the target, and they will act as if they
  734. are "anded" together.</p>
  735. <p>If you are using a version of Ant 1.3 or earlier, the
  736. way to work with all other cases is to chain targets together
  737. to determine the specific state you want to test for.</p>
  738. <p>To see how this works, assume you have three properties:
  739. <code>prop1</code>, <code>prop2</code>, and <code>prop3</code>.
  740. You want to test that <code>prop1</code> and <code>prop2</code>
  741. are set, and that <code>prop3</code> is not. If the condition
  742. holds true you want to echo "yes".</p>
  743. <p>Here is the implementation in Ant 1.3 and earlier:</p>
  744. <pre class="code">
  745. &lt;target name=&quot;cond&quot; depends=&quot;cond-if&quot;/&gt;
  746. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-if&quot; if=&quot;prop1&quot;&gt;
  747. &lt;antcall target=&quot;cond-if-2&quot;/&gt;
  748. &lt;/target&gt;
  749. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-if-2&quot; if=&quot;prop2&quot;&gt;
  750. &lt;antcall target=&quot;cond-if-3&quot;/&gt;
  751. &lt;/target&gt;
  752. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-if-3&quot; unless=&quot;prop3&quot;&gt;
  753. &lt;echo message=&quot;yes&quot;/&gt;
  754. &lt;/target&gt;
  755. </pre>
  756. <p>Note: <code>&lt;antcall&gt;</code> tasks do <em>not</em> pass
  757. property changes back up to the environment they were called
  758. from, so you would'nt be able to, for example, set a
  759. <code>result</code> property in the <code>cond-if-3</code> target,
  760. then do
  761. <code>&lt;echo message="result is ${result}"/&gt;</code>
  762. in the <code>cond</code> target.</p>
  763. <p>Starting with Ant 1.4, you can use the
  764. <code>&lt;condition&gt;</code> task.</p>
  765. <pre class="code">
  766. &lt;target name=&quot;cond&quot; depends=&quot;cond-if,cond-else&quot;/&gt;
  767. &lt;target name=&quot;check-cond&quot;&gt;
  768. &lt;condition property=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
  769. &lt;and&gt;
  770. &lt;not&gt;
  771. &lt;equals arg1=&quot;${prop1}&quot; arg2=&quot;$${prop1}&quot; /&gt;
  772. &lt;/not&gt;
  773. &lt;not&gt;
  774. &lt;equals arg1=&quot;${prop2}&quot; arg2=&quot;$${prop2}&quot; /&gt;
  775. &lt;/not&gt;
  776. &lt;equals arg1=&quot;${prop3}&quot; arg2=&quot;$${prop3}&quot; /&gt;
  777. &lt;/and&gt;
  778. &lt;/condition&gt;
  779. &lt;/target&gt;
  780. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-if&quot; depends=&quot;check-cond&quot; if=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
  781. &lt;echo message=&quot;yes&quot;/&gt;
  782. &lt;/target&gt;
  783. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-else&quot; depends=&quot;check-cond&quot; unless=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
  784. &lt;echo message=&quot;no&quot;/&gt;
  785. &lt;/target&gt;
  786. </pre>
  787. <p>This version takes advantage of two things:</p>
  788. <ul>
  789. <li>If a property <code>a</code> has not been set,
  790. <code>${a}</code> will evaluate to <code>${a}</code>.</li>
  791. <li>To get a literal <code>$</code> in Ant, you have to
  792. escape it with another <code>$</code> - this will also break
  793. the special treatment of the <code>${</code> sequence.</li>
  794. </ul>
  795. <p>Because testing for a literal <code>${property}</code> string
  796. isn't all that readable or easy to understand,
  797. post-1.4.1 Ant introduces the <code>&lt;isset&gt;</code> element
  798. to the <code>&lt;condition&gt;</code> task.</p>
  799. <p>Here is the previous example done using
  800. <code>&lt;isset&gt;</code>:</p>
  801. <pre class="code">
  802. &lt;target name=&quot;check-cond&quot;&gt;
  803. &lt;condition property=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
  804. &lt;and&gt;
  805. &lt;isset property=&quot;prop1&quot;/&gt;
  806. &lt;isset property=&quot;prop2&quot;/&gt;
  807. &lt;not&gt;
  808. &lt;isset property=&quot;prop3&quot;/&gt;
  809. &lt;/not&gt;
  810. &lt;/and&gt;
  811. &lt;/condition&gt;
  812. &lt;/target&gt;
  813. </pre>
  814. <p>The last option is to use a scripting language to set the
  815. properties. This can be particularly handy when you need much
  816. finer control than the simple conditions shown here but, of
  817. course, comes with the overhead of adding JAR files to support
  818. the language, to say nothing of the added maintenance in requiring
  819. two languages to implement a single system. See the
  820. <a href="manual/OptionalTasks/script.html">
  821. <code>&lt;script&gt;</code> task documentation</a> for more
  822. details.</p>
  823. <p class="faq">
  824. <a name="encoding"></a>
  825. How can I include national characters like German
  826. umlauts in my build file?
  827. </p>
  828. <p>You need to tell the XML parser which character encoding
  829. your build file uses, this is done inside the <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xml-20001006#sec-prolog-dtd">XML
  830. declaration</a>.</p>
  831. <p>By default the parser assumes you are using the UTF-8
  832. encoding instead of your platform's default. For most Western
  833. European countries you should set the encoding to
  834. <code>ISO-8859-1</code>. To do so, make the very first line
  835. of you build file read like</p>
  836. <pre class="code">
  837. &lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot; encoding=&quot;ISO-8859-1&quot; ?&gt;
  838. </pre>
  839. <p class="faq">
  840. <a name="use-zip-instead-of-jar"></a>
  841. How do I use <code>jar</code>'s <code>M</code> switch?
  842. I don't want a MANIFEST.
  843. </p>
  844. <p>A JAR archive is a ZIP file, so if you don't want a
  845. MANIFEST you can simply use <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code>.</p>
  846. <p>If your file names contain national characters you should
  847. know that Sun's <code>jar</code> utility like Ant's
  848. <code>&lt;jar&gt;</code> uses UFT8 to encode their names while
  849. <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> uses your platforms default encoding.
  850. Use the encoding attribute of <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> if
  851. necessary.</p>
  852. <p class="faq">
  853. <a name="always-recompiles"></a>
  854. Why does Ant always recompile all my Java files?
  855. </p>
  856. <p>In order to find out which files should be compiled, Ant
  857. compares the timestamps of the source files to those of the
  858. resulting <code>.class</code> files. Opening all source files
  859. to find out which package they belong to would be very
  860. inefficient. Instead, Ant expects you to place your
  861. source files in a directory hierarchy that mirrors your
  862. package hierarchy and to point Ant to the root of this
  863. directory tree with the <code>srcdir</code> attribute.</p>
  864. <p>Say you have <code>&lt;javac srcdir="src"
  865. destdir="dest"/&gt;</code>. If Ant finds a file
  866. <code>src/a/b/C.java</code>, it expects it to be in package
  867. <code>a.b</code> so that the resulting <code>.class</code>
  868. file is going to be <code>dest/a/b/C.class</code>.</p>
  869. <p>If your source-tree directory structure does not match your
  870. package structure, Ant's heuristic won't work, and
  871. it will recompile classes that are up-to-date. Ant is not the
  872. only tool that expects a source-tree layout like this.</p>
  873. <p>If you have Java source files that aren't declared to
  874. be part of any package, you can still use the <code>&lt;javac&gt;</code>
  875. task to compile these files correctly - just set the
  876. <code>srcdir</code> and <code>destdir</code> attributes to
  877. the actual directory the source
  878. files live in and the directory the class files should go into,
  879. respectively.</p>
  880. <p class="faq">
  881. <a name="defaultexcludes"></a>
  882. I've used a <code>&lt;delete&gt;</code> task to
  883. delete unwanted SourceSafe control files (CVS files, editor
  884. backup files, etc.), but it doesn't seem to work; the files
  885. never get deleted. What's wrong?
  886. </p>
  887. <p>This is probably happening because, by default, Ant excludes
  888. SourceSafe control files (<code>vssver.scc</code>) and certain other
  889. files from FileSets.</p>
  890. <p>Here's what you probably did:</p>
  891. <pre class="code">
  892. &lt;delete&gt;
  893. &lt;fileset dir=&quot;${build.src}&quot; includes=&quot;**/vssver.scc&quot;/&gt;
  894. &lt;/delete&gt;
  895. </pre>
  896. <p>You need to switch off the default exclusions,
  897. and it will work:</p>
  898. <pre class="code">
  899. &lt;delete&gt;
  900. &lt;fileset dir=&quot;${build.src}&quot; includes=&quot;**/vssver.scc&quot;
  901. defaultexcludes=&quot;no&quot;/&gt;
  902. &lt;/delete&gt;
  903. </pre>
  904. <p>For a complete listing of the patterns that are excluded
  905. by default, see <a href="manual/dirtasks.html#defaultexcludes">the user
  906. manual</a>.</p>
  907. <p class="faq">
  908. <a name="stop-dependency"></a>
  909. I have a target I want to skip if a property is set,
  910. so I have <code>unless="property"</code> as an attribute
  911. of the target, but all the targets this target
  912. depends on are still executed. Why?
  913. </p>
  914. <p>The list of dependencies is generated by Ant before any of the
  915. targets are run. This allows dependent targets, such as an
  916. <code>init</code> target, to set properties that can control the
  917. execution of the targets higher in the dependency graph. This
  918. is a good thing.</p>
  919. <p>However, when your dependencies break down the
  920. higher-level task
  921. into several smaller steps, this behaviour becomes
  922. counter-intuitive. There are a couple of solutions available:
  923. </p>
  924. <ol>
  925. <li>Put the same condition on each of the dependent targets.</li>
  926. <li>Execute the steps using <code>&lt;antcall&gt;</code>,
  927. instead of specifying them inside the <code>depends</code>
  928. attribute.</li>
  929. </ol>
  930. <p class="faq">
  931. <a name="include-order"></a>
  932. In my <code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>, I've put in an
  933. <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> of all files followed by an
  934. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> of just the files I want, but it
  935. isn't giving me any files at all. What's wrong?
  936. </p>
  937. <p>The order of the <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> and
  938. <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> tags within a <code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>
  939. is ignored when the FileSet is created. Instead, all of the
  940. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> elements are processed together,
  941. followed by all of the <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code>
  942. elements. This means that the <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code>
  943. elements only apply to the file list produced by the
  944. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> elements.</p>
  945. <p>To get the files you want, focus on just the
  946. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> patterns that would be necessary
  947. to get them. If you find you need to trim the list that the
  948. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> elements produce, then use
  949. <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> elements.</p>
  950. <p class="faq">
  951. <a name="properties-not-trimmed"></a>
  952. <code>ant</code> failed to build my program via javac
  953. even when I put the needed jars in an external
  954. <code>build.properties</code> file and reference them by
  955. <code>pathelement</code> or <code>classpath refid</code>.
  956. </p>
  957. <p>When <code>ant</code> loads properties from an external
  958. file it dosn't touch the value of properties, trailing blanks
  959. will not be trimmed for example.</p>
  960. <p>If the value represents a file path, like a jar needed to
  961. compile, the task which requires the value, javac for example
  962. would fail to compile since it can't find the file due to
  963. trailing spaces.</p>
  964. <p class="faq">
  965. <a name="winzip-lies"></a>
  966. Ant creates WAR files with a lower-case
  967. <code>web-inf</code> or JAR files with a lower-case
  968. <code>meta-inf</code> directory.
  969. </p>
  970. <p>No it doesn't.</p>
  971. <p>You may have seen these lower-case directory names in
  972. WinZIP, but WinZIP is trying to be helpful (and fails). If
  973. WinZIP encounters a filename that is all upper-case, it
  974. assumes it has come from an old DOS box and changes the case to
  975. all lower-case for you.</p>
  976. <p>If you extract (or just check) the archive with jar, you
  977. will see that the names have the correct case.</p>
  978. <p>With WinZIP (version 8.1 at least), this can be corrected in the
  979. configuration. In the Options/Configuration menu, in the View tab, General
  980. section, check the "Allow all upper case files names" box. The META-INF and
  981. WEB-INF will look correct.</p>
  982. <p class="faq">
  983. <a name="integration"></a>
  984. Is Ant supported by my IDE/Editor?
  985. </p>
  986. <p>See the <a href="external.html#IDE and Editor Integration">section
  987. on IDE integration</a> on our External Tools and Tasks page.</p>
  988. <p class="faq">
  989. <a name="emacs-mode"></a>
  990. Why doesn't (X)Emacs/vi/MacOS X's project builder
  991. correctly parse the error messages generated by Ant?
  992. </p>
  993. <p>Ant adds a "banner" with the name of the current
  994. task in front of all logging messages - and there are no built-in
  995. regular expressions in your editor that would account for
  996. this.</p>
  997. <p>You can disable this banner by invoking Ant with the
  998. <code>-emacs</code> switch. To make Ant autodetect
  999. Emacs' compile mode, put this into your
  1000. <code>.antrc</code> (contributed by Ville Skytt�).</p>
  1001. <pre class="code">
  1002. # Detect (X)Emacs compile mode
  1003. if [ &quot;$EMACS&quot; = &quot;t&quot; ] ; then
  1004. ANT_ARGS=&quot;$ANT_ARGS -emacs&quot;
  1005. ANT_OPTS=&quot;$ANT_OPTS -Dbuild.compiler.emacs=true&quot;
  1006. fi
  1007. </pre>
  1008. <p>Alternatively, you can add the following snippet to your
  1009. <code>.emacs</code> to make Emacs understand Ant's
  1010. output.</p>
  1011. <pre class="code">
  1012. (require 'compile)
  1013. (setq compilation-error-regexp-alist
  1014. (append (list
  1015. ;; works for jikes
  1016. '(&quot;^\\s-*\\[[^]]*\\]\\s-*\\(.+\\):\\([0-9]+\\):\\([0-9]+\\):[0-9]+:[0-9]+:&quot; 1 2 3)
  1017. ;; works for javac
  1018. '(&quot;^\\s-*\\[[^]]*\\]\\s-*\\(.+\\):\\([0-9]+\\):&quot; 1 2))
  1019. compilation-error-regexp-alist))
  1020. </pre>
  1021. <p>Yet another alternative that preserves most of Ant's
  1022. formatting is to pipe Ant's output through the following Perl
  1023. script by Dirk-Willem van Gulik:</p>
  1024. <pre class="code">
  1025. #!/usr/bin/perl
  1026. #
  1027. # May 2001 dirkx@apache.org - remove any
  1028. # [foo] lines from the output; keeping
  1029. # spacing more or less there.
  1030. #
  1031. $|=1;
  1032. while(&lt;STDIN&gt;) {
  1033. if (s/^(\s+)\[(\w+)\]//) {
  1034. if ($2 ne $last) {
  1035. print &quot;$1\[$2\]&quot;;
  1036. $s = ' ' x length($2);
  1037. } else {
  1038. print &quot;$1 $s &quot;;
  1039. };
  1040. $last = $2;
  1041. };
  1042. print;
  1043. };
  1044. </pre>
  1045. <p class="faq">
  1046. <a name="dtd"></a>
  1047. Is there a DTD that I can use to validate my build
  1048. files?
  1049. </p>
  1050. <p>An incomplete DTD can be created by the
  1051. <code>&lt;antstructure&gt;</code> task - but this one
  1052. has a few problems:</p>
  1053. <ul>
  1054. <li>It doesn't know about required attributes. Only
  1055. manual tweaking of this file can help here.</li>
  1056. <li>It is not complete - if you add new tasks via
  1057. <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> it won't know about it. See
  1058. <a href="http://www.sdv.fr/pages/casa/html/ant-dtd.en.html">this
  1059. page</a> by Michel Casabianca for a solution to this
  1060. problem. Note that the DTD you can download at this page
  1061. is based on Ant 0.3.1.</li>
  1062. <li>It may even be an invalid DTD. As Ant allows tasks
  1063. writers to define arbitrary elements, name collisions will
  1064. happen quite frequently - if your version of Ant contains
  1065. the optional <code>&lt;test&gt;</code> and
  1066. <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> tasks, there are two XML
  1067. elements named <code>test</code> (the task and the nested child
  1068. element of <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code>) with different attribute
  1069. lists. This problem cannot be solved; DTDs don't give a
  1070. syntax rich enough to support this.</li>
  1071. </ul>
  1072. <p class="faq">
  1073. <a name="xml-entity-include"></a>
  1074. How do I include an XML snippet in my build file?
  1075. </p>
  1076. <p>You can use XML's way of including external files and let
  1077. the parser do the job for Ant:</p>
  1078. <pre class="code">
  1079. &lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot;?&gt;
  1080. &lt;!DOCTYPE project [
  1081. &lt;!ENTITY common SYSTEM &quot;file:./common.xml&quot;&gt;
  1082. ]&gt;
  1083. &lt;project name=&quot;test&quot; default=&quot;test&quot; basedir=&quot;.&quot;&gt;
  1084. &lt;target name=&quot;setup&quot;&gt;
  1085. ...
  1086. &lt;/target&gt;
  1087. &amp;common;
  1088. ...
  1089. &lt;/project&gt;
  1090. </pre>
  1091. <p>will literally include the contents of <code>common.xml</code> where
  1092. you've placed the <code>&amp;common;</code> entity.</p>
  1093. <p>In combination with a DTD, this would look like this:</p>
  1094. <pre class="code">
  1095. &lt;!DOCTYPE project PUBLIC &quot;-//ANT//DTD project//EN&quot; &quot;file:./ant.dtd&quot; [
  1096. &lt;!ENTITY include SYSTEM &quot;file:./header.xml&quot;&gt;
  1097. ]&gt;
  1098. </pre>
  1099. <p>Starting with Ant 1.6, there is a new
  1100. <code>&lt;import&gt;</code> task that can (also) be used to
  1101. include build file fragments. Unlike the snippets used with
  1102. entity includes, the referenced files have to be complete Ant
  1103. build files, though.</p>
  1104. <p>The example above would become:</p>
  1105. <pre class="code">
  1106. &lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot;?&gt;
  1107. &lt;project name=&quot;test&quot; default=&quot;test&quot; basedir=&quot;.&quot;&gt;
  1108. &lt;target name=&quot;setup&quot;&gt;
  1109. ...
  1110. &lt;/target&gt;
  1111. &lt;import file=&quot;../common.xml&quot;/&gt;
  1112. ...
  1113. &lt;/project&gt;
  1114. </pre>
  1115. <p>Unlike entity includes, <code>&lt;import&gt;</code> will
  1116. let you use Ant properties in the file name.</p>
  1117. <p class="faq">
  1118. <a name="mail-logger"></a>
  1119. How do I send an email with the result of my build
  1120. process?
  1121. </p>
  1122. <p>If you are using a nightly build of Ant 1.5 after
  1123. 2001-12-14, you can use the built-in MailLogger:</p>
  1124. <pre class="code">
  1125. ant -logger org.apache.tools.ant.listener.MailLogger
  1126. </pre>
  1127. <p>See the <a href="http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs/~checkout~/ant/docs/manual/listeners.html?content-type=text/html">Listeners
  1128. &amp; Loggers</a> documentation for details on the properties
  1129. required.</p>
  1130. <p>For older versions of Ant, you can use a custom
  1131. BuildListener that sends out an email
  1132. in the buildFinished() method. Will Glozer
  1133. &lt;will.glozer@jda.com&gt; has written such a listener based
  1134. on <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/javamail/">JavaMail</a>.
  1135. The source is:</p>
  1136. <pre class="code">
  1137. import java.io.*;
  1138. import java.util.*;
  1139. import javax.mail.*;
  1140. import javax.mail.internet.*;
  1141. import org.apache.tools.ant.*;
  1142. /**
  1143. * A simple listener that waits for a build to finish and sends an email
  1144. * of the results. The settings are stored in &quot;monitor.properties&quot; and
  1145. * are fairly self explanatory.
  1146. *
  1147. * @author Will Glozer
  1148. * @version 1.05a 09/06/2000
  1149. */
  1150. public class BuildMonitor implements BuildListener {
  1151. protected Properties props;
  1152. /**
  1153. * Create a new BuildMonitor.
  1154. */
  1155. public BuildMonitor() throws Exception {
  1156. props = new Properties();
  1157. InputStream is = getClass().getResourceAsStream(&quot;monitor.properties&quot;);
  1158. props.load(is);
  1159. is.close();
  1160. }
  1161. public void buildStarted(BuildEvent e) {
  1162. }
  1163. /**
  1164. * Determine the status of the build and the actions to follow, now that
  1165. * the build has completed.
  1166. *
  1167. * @param e Event describing the build status.
  1168. */
  1169. public void buildFinished(BuildEvent e) {
  1170. Throwable th = e.getException();
  1171. String status = (th != null) ? &quot;failed&quot; : &quot;succeeded&quot;;
  1172. try {
  1173. String key = &quot;build.&quot; + status;
  1174. if (props.getProperty(key + &quot;.notify&quot;).equalsIgnoreCase(&quot;false&quot;)) {
  1175. return;
  1176. }
  1177. Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, null);
  1178. MimeMessage message = new MimeMessage(session);
  1179. message.addRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO, parseAddresses(
  1180. props.getProperty(key + &quot;.email.to&quot;)));
  1181. message.setSubject(props.getProperty(key + &quot;.email.subject&quot;));
  1182. BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(
  1183. props.getProperty(&quot;build.log&quot;)));
  1184. StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
  1185. String line = br.readLine();
  1186. while (line != null) {
  1187. sw.write(line);
  1188. sw.write(&quot;\n&quot;);
  1189. line = br.readLine();
  1190. }
  1191. br.close();
  1192. message.setText(sw.toString(), &quot;UTF-8&quot;);
  1193. sw.close();
  1194. Transport transport = session.getTransport();
  1195. transport.connect();
  1196. transport.send(message);
  1197. transport.close();
  1198. } catch (Exception ex) {
  1199. System.out.println(&quot;BuildMonitor failed to send email!&quot;);
  1200. ex.printStackTrace();
  1201. }
  1202. }
  1203. /**
  1204. * Parse a comma separated list of internet email addresses.
  1205. *
  1206. * @param s The list of addresses.
  1207. * @return Array of Addresses.
  1208. */
  1209. protected Address[] parseAddresses(String s) throws Exception {
  1210. StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(s, &quot;,&quot;);
  1211. Address[] addrs = new Address[st.countTokens()];
  1212. for (int i = 0; i &lt; addrs.length; i++) {
  1213. addrs[i] = new InternetAddress(st.nextToken());
  1214. }
  1215. return addrs;
  1216. }
  1217. public void messageLogged(BuildEvent e) {
  1218. }
  1219. public void targetStarted(BuildEvent e) {
  1220. }
  1221. public void targetFinished(BuildEvent e) {
  1222. }
  1223. public void taskStarted(BuildEvent e) {
  1224. }
  1225. public void taskFinished(BuildEvent e) {
  1226. }
  1227. }
  1228. </pre>
  1229. <p>With a <code>monitor.properties</code> like this:</p>
  1230. <pre class="code">
  1231. # configuration for build monitor
  1232. mail.transport.protocol=smtp
  1233. mail.smtp.host=&lt;host&gt;
  1234. mail.from=Will Glozer &lt;will.glozer@jda.com&gt;
  1235. build.log=build.log
  1236. build.failed.notify=true
  1237. build.failed.email.to=will.glozer@jda.com
  1238. build.failed.email.subject=Nightly build failed!
  1239. build.succeeded.notify=true
  1240. build.succeeded.email.to=will.glozer@jda.com
  1241. build.succeeded.email.subject=Nightly build succeeded!
  1242. </pre>
  1243. <p><code>monitor.properties</code> should be placed right next
  1244. to your compiled <code>BuildMonitor.class</code>. To use it,
  1245. invoke Ant like:</p>
  1246. <pre class="code">
  1247. ant -listener BuildMonitor -logfile build.log
  1248. </pre>
  1249. <p>Make sure that <code>mail.jar</code> from JavaMail and
  1250. <code>activation.jar</code> from the
  1251. <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/javabeans/glasgow/jaf.html">Java
  1252. Beans Activation Framework</a> are in your <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
  1253. <p class="faq">
  1254. <a name="listener-properties"></a>
  1255. How do I get at the properties that Ant was running
  1256. with from inside BuildListener?
  1257. </p>
  1258. <p>You can get at a hashtable with all the properties that Ant
  1259. has been using through the BuildEvent parameter. For
  1260. example:</p>
  1261. <pre class="code">
  1262. public void buildFinished(BuildEvent e) {
  1263. Hashtable table = e.getProject().getProperties();
  1264. String buildpath = (String)table.get(&quot;build.path&quot;);
  1265. ...
  1266. }
  1267. </pre>
  1268. <p>This is more accurate than just reading the same property
  1269. files that your project does, since it will give the correct
  1270. results for properties that were specified on the Ant command line.</p>
  1271. <p class="faq">
  1272. <a name="remove-cr"></a>
  1273. &lt;chmod&gt; or &lt;exec&gt; doesn't work in Ant
  1274. 1.3 on Unix
  1275. </p>
  1276. <p>The <code>antRun</code> script in <code>ANT_HOME/bin</code>
  1277. has DOS instead of Unix line endings; you must remove the
  1278. carriage-return characters from this file. This can be done by
  1279. using Ant's <code>&lt;fixcrlf&gt;</code> task
  1280. or something like:</p>
  1281. <pre class="code">
  1282. tr -d '\r' &lt; $ANT_HOME/bin/antRun &gt; /tmp/foo
  1283. mv /tmp/foo $ANT_HOME/bin/antRun
  1284. </pre>
  1285. <p class="faq">
  1286. <a name="javadoc-cannot-execute"></a>
  1287. JavaDoc failed: java.io.IOException: javadoc: cannot execute
  1288. </p>
  1289. <p>There is a bug in the Solaris reference implementation of
  1290. the JDK (see <a href="http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4230399.html">http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4230399.html</a>).
  1291. This also appears to be true under Linux. Moving the JDK to
  1292. the front of the PATH fixes the problem.</p>
  1293. <p class="faq">
  1294. <a name="delegating-classloader"></a>
  1295. &lt;style&gt; or &lt;junit&gt; ignores my
  1296. &lt;classpath&gt;
  1297. </p>
  1298. <p>These tasks don't ignore your classpath setting, you
  1299. are facing a common problem with delegating classloaders.</p>
  1300. <p>First of all let's state that Ant adds all
  1301. <code>.jar</code> files from <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code> to
  1302. <code>CLASSPATH</code>, therefore "in
  1303. <code>CLASSPATH</code>" shall mean "either in your
  1304. <code>CLASSPATH</code> environment variable or
  1305. <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code>" for the rest of this
  1306. answer.</p>
  1307. <p>Technically the sentence above isn't true for Ant 1.6
  1308. and later anymore, but the result is the same. For the sake
  1309. of this discussion, <code>CLASSPATH</code> and
  1310. <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code> are identical.</p>
  1311. <p>This question collects a common type of problem: A task
  1312. needs an external library and it has a nested classpath
  1313. element so that you can point it to this external library, but
  1314. that doesn't work unless you put the external library into the
  1315. <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
  1316. <p>The root of the problem is that the class that needs the
  1317. external library is on the <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
  1318. <p>When you specify a nested <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> in
  1319. Ant, Ant creates a new class loader that uses the path you
  1320. have specified. It then tries to load additional classes from
  1321. this classloader.</p>
  1322. <p>In most cases - for example the two cases above - Ant
  1323. doesn't load the external library directly, it is the loaded
  1324. class that does so.</p>
  1325. <p>In the case of <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> it is the task
  1326. implementation itself and in the case of
  1327. <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> it is the implementation of the
  1328. <code>org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.XSLTLiaison</code>
  1329. class.</p>
  1330. <p>Ant's class loader implementation uses Java's
  1331. delegation model, see <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.2/docs/api/java/lang/ClassLoader.html">http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.2/docs/api/java/lang/ClassLoader.html</a>
  1332. the paragraph</p>
  1333. <blockquote>The <code>ClassLoader</code> class uses a
  1334. delegation model to search for classes and resources. Each
  1335. instance of <code>ClassLoader</code> has an associated parent
  1336. class loader. When called upon to find a class or resource, a
  1337. <code>ClassLoader</code> instance will delegate the search for
  1338. the class or resource to its parent class loader before
  1339. attempting to find the class or resource itself. The virtual
  1340. machine's built-in class loader, called the bootstrap
  1341. class loader, does not itself have a parent but may serve as
  1342. the parent of a <code>ClassLoader</code>
  1343. instance.</blockquote>
  1344. <p>This means, Ant's class loader will consult the
  1345. bootstrap class loader first, which tries to load classes from
  1346. <code>CLASSPATH</code>. The bootstrap class loader
  1347. doesn't know anything about Ant's class loader or
  1348. even the path you have specified.</p>
  1349. <p>If the bootstrap class loader can load the class Ant has
  1350. asked it to load, this class will try to load the external
  1351. library from <code>CLASSPATH</code> as well - it doesn't
  1352. know anything else - and will not find it unless the library
  1353. is in <code>CLASSPATH</code> as well.</p>
  1354. <p>To solve this, you have two major options:</p>
  1355. <ol>
  1356. <li>put all external libraries you need in
  1357. <code>CLASSPATH</code> as well this is not what you want,
  1358. otherwise you wouldn't have found this FAQ entry.</li>
  1359. <li>remove the class that loads the external library from
  1360. the <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</li>
  1361. </ol>
  1362. <p><strong>Using The Second Option with Ant 1.5.4 and
  1363. Earlier:</strong></p>
  1364. <p>The easiest way to do this is to remove
  1365. <code>optional.jar</code> from <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code>. If
  1366. you do so, you will have to <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> all
  1367. optional tasks and use nested <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code>
  1368. elements in the <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> tasks that point
  1369. to the new location of <code>optional.jar</code>. Also,
  1370. don't forget to add the new location of
  1371. <code>optional.jar</code> to the
  1372. <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> of your
  1373. <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> or <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code>
  1374. task.</p>
  1375. <p>If you want to avoid to <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> all
  1376. optional tasks you need, the only other option is to remove
  1377. the classes that should not be loaded via the bootstrap class
  1378. loader from <code>optional.jar</code> and put them into a
  1379. separate archive. Add this separate archive to the
  1380. <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> of your
  1381. <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> or <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> task
  1382. - and make sure the separate archive is not in
  1383. <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
  1384. <p>In the case of <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> you'd have
  1385. to remove all classes that are in the
  1386. <code>org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/junit</code>
  1387. directory, in the <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> case it is one of
  1388. the <code>*Liaison</code> classes in
  1389. <code>org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional</code>.</p>
  1390. <p><strong>Using The Second Option with Ant 1.6 and
  1391. later:</strong></p>
  1392. <p>In Ant 1.6 <code>optional.jar</code> has been split into
  1393. multiple jars, each one containing classes with the same
  1394. dependencies on external libraries. You can move the
  1395. "offending" jar out of ANT_HOME/lib. For the
  1396. <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> task it would be
  1397. <code>ant-junit.jar</code> and for <code>&lt;style&gt;</code>
  1398. it would be <code>ant-trax.jar</code>,
  1399. <code>ant-xalan1.jar</code> or <code>ant-xslp.jar</code> -
  1400. depending on the processor you use.</p>
  1401. <p>If you use the option to break up <code>optional.jar</code>
  1402. for <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> or remove
  1403. <code>ant-junit.jar</code>, you still have to use a
  1404. <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> with a nested
  1405. <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> to define the junit task.</p>
  1406. <p class="faq">
  1407. <a name="winxp-jdk14-ant14"></a>
  1408. When running Ant 1.4 on Windows XP and JDK 1.4, I get
  1409. various errors when trying to <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code>, fork
  1410. <code>&lt;java&gt;</code> or access environment
  1411. variables.
  1412. </p>
  1413. <p>Ant &lt; 1.5 doesn't recognize Windows XP as a flavor
  1414. of Windows that runs <code>CMD.EXE</code> instead of
  1415. <code>COMMAND.COM</code>. JDK 1.3 will tell Ant that Windows
  1416. XP is Windows 2000 so the problem doesn't show up
  1417. there.</p>
  1418. <p>Apart from upgrading to Ant 1.5 or better, setting the
  1419. environment variable <code>ANT_OPTS</code> to
  1420. <code>-Dos.name=Windows_NT</code> prior to invoking Ant has
  1421. been confirmed as a workaround.</p>
  1422. <p class="faq">
  1423. <a name="1.5-cygwin-sh"></a>
  1424. The <code>ant</code> wrapper script of Ant 1.5 fails
  1425. for Cygwin if <code>ANT_HOME</code> is set to a Windows style
  1426. path.
  1427. </p>
  1428. <p>This problem has been reported only hours after Ant 1.5 has
  1429. been released, see <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10664">Bug
  1430. 10664</a> and all its duplicates.</p>
  1431. <p>A fixed version of the wrapper script can be found <a href="http://ant.apache.org/old-releases/v1.5/errata/">here</a>.
  1432. Simply replace your script with this version.</p>
  1433. <p class="faq">
  1434. <a name="1.5.2-zip-broken"></a>
  1435. <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> is broken in Ant 1.5.2.
  1436. </p>
  1437. <p>Yes, it is.</p>
  1438. <p>The problem reported by most people - see <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17648">Bug
  1439. 17648</a> and all its duplicates - is that Ant creates
  1440. archives that a partially unreadable by WinZIP. Luckily
  1441. <code>jar</code> deals with the archives and so the generated
  1442. jars/wars/ears will most likely work for you anyway.</p>
  1443. <p>There are additional problems, see bugs <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17780">Bug
  1444. 17780</a>, <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17871">Bug
  1445. 17871</a> and <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=18403">Bug
  1446. 18403</a>. All of them are supposed to be fixed with Ant
  1447. 1.5.3 (and only 18403 should exist in 1.5.3beta1).</p>
  1448. </div>
  1449. </div>
  1450. <p class="copyright">
  1451. Copyright &copy; 2000-2003&nbsp;The Apache Software Foundation. All rights reserved.
  1452. <script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript"><!--
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