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  164. <div class="lightbluebar">&nbsp;</div>
  165. <div class="main">
  166. <div class="content">
  167. <h1 class="title">Frequently Asked Questions</h1>
  168. <h3 class="section">Questions</h3>
  169. <h4 class="toc">About this FAQ</h4>
  170. <ul>
  171. <li><a href="#latest-version">
  172. Where do I find the latest version of this
  173. document?
  174. </a></li>
  175. <li><a href="#adding-faqs">
  176. How can I contribute to this FAQ?
  177. </a></li>
  178. <li><a href="#creating-faq">
  179. How do you create the HTML version of this
  180. FAQ?
  181. </a></li>
  182. </ul>
  183. <h4 class="toc">General</h4>
  184. <ul>
  185. <li><a href="#what-is-ant">
  186. What is Apache Ant?
  187. </a></li>
  188. <li><a href="#ant-name">
  189. Why do you call it Ant?
  190. </a></li>
  191. <li><a href="#history">
  192. Tell us a little bit about Ant's history.
  193. </a></li>
  194. </ul>
  195. <h4 class="toc">Installation</h4>
  196. <ul>
  197. <li><a href="#no-gnu-tar">
  198. I get checksum errors when I try to extract the
  199. <code>tar.gz</code> distribution file. Why?
  200. </a></li>
  201. </ul>
  202. <h4 class="toc">How do I ...</h4>
  203. <ul>
  204. <li><a href="#adding-external-tasks">
  205. How do I add an external task that I've written to the
  206. page "External Tools and Task"?
  207. </a></li>
  208. <li><a href="#passing-cli-args">
  209. How do I pass parameters from the command line to my
  210. build file?
  211. </a></li>
  212. <li><a href="#jikes-switches">
  213. How can I use Jikes-specific command-line
  214. switches?
  215. </a></li>
  216. <li><a href="#shell-redirect-1">
  217. How do I include a &lt; character in my command-line arguments?
  218. </a></li>
  219. <li><a href="#shell-redirect-2">
  220. How do I redirect standard input or standard output
  221. in the <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code> task?
  222. </a></li>
  223. <li><a href="#batch-shell-execute">
  224. How do I execute a batch file or shell script from Ant?
  225. </a></li>
  226. <li><a href="#multi-conditions">
  227. I want to execute a particular target only if
  228. multiple conditions are true.
  229. </a></li>
  230. <li><a href="#encoding">
  231. How can I include national characters like German
  232. umlauts in my build file?
  233. </a></li>
  234. <li><a href="#use-zip-instead-of-jar">
  235. How do I use <code>jar</code>'s <code>M</code> switch?
  236. I don't want a MANIFEST.
  237. </a></li>
  238. </ul>
  239. <h4 class="toc">It doesn't work (as expected)</h4>
  240. <ul>
  241. <li><a href="#always-recompiles">
  242. Why does Ant always recompile all my Java files?
  243. </a></li>
  244. <li><a href="#defaultexcludes">
  245. I've used a <code>&lt;delete&gt;</code> task to
  246. delete unwanted SourceSafe control files (CVS files, editor
  247. backup files, etc.), but it doesn't seem to work; the files
  248. never get deleted. What's wrong?
  249. </a></li>
  250. <li><a href="#stop-dependency">
  251. I have a target I want to skip if a property is set,
  252. so I have <code>unless="property"</code> as an attribute
  253. of the target, but all the targets this target
  254. depends on are still executed. Why?
  255. </a></li>
  256. <li><a href="#include-order">
  257. In my <code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>, I've put in an
  258. <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> of all files followed by an
  259. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> of just the files I want, but it
  260. isn't giving me any files at all. What's wrong?
  261. </a></li>
  262. <li><a href="#properties-not-trimmed">
  263. <code>ant</code> failed to build my program via javac
  264. even when I put the needed jars in an external
  265. <code>build.properties</code> file and reference them by
  266. <code>pathelement</code> or <code>classpath refid</code>.
  267. </a></li>
  268. <li><a href="#winzip-lies">
  269. Ant creates WAR files with a lower-case
  270. <code>web-inf</code> or JAR files with a lower-case
  271. <code>meta-inf</code> directory.
  272. </a></li>
  273. </ul>
  274. <h4 class="toc">Ant and IDEs/Editors</h4>
  275. <ul>
  276. <li><a href="#integration">
  277. Is Ant supported by my IDE/Editor?
  278. </a></li>
  279. <li><a href="#emacs-mode">
  280. Why doesn't (X)Emacs/vi/MacOS X's project builder
  281. correctly parse the error messages generated by Ant?
  282. </a></li>
  283. </ul>
  284. <h4 class="toc">Advanced Issues</h4>
  285. <ul>
  286. <li><a href="#dtd">
  287. Is there a DTD that I can use to validate my build
  288. files?
  289. </a></li>
  290. <li><a href="#xml-entity-include">
  291. How do I include an XML snippet in my build file?
  292. </a></li>
  293. <li><a href="#mail-logger">
  294. How do I send an email with the result of my build
  295. process?
  296. </a></li>
  297. <li><a href="#listener-properties">
  298. How do I get at the properties that Ant was running
  299. with from inside BuildListener?
  300. </a></li>
  301. </ul>
  302. <h4 class="toc">Known Problems</h4>
  303. <ul>
  304. <li><a href="#remove-cr">
  305. &lt;chmod&gt; or &lt;exec&gt; doesn't work in Ant
  306. 1.3 on Unix
  307. </a></li>
  308. <li><a href="#javadoc-cannot-execute">
  309. JavaDoc failed: java.io.IOException: javadoc: cannot execute
  310. </a></li>
  311. <li><a href="#delegating-classloader">
  312. &lt;style&gt; or &lt;junit&gt; ignores my
  313. &lt;classpath&gt;
  314. </a></li>
  315. <li><a href="#winxp-jdk14-ant14">
  316. When running Ant 1.4 on Windows XP and JDK 1.4, I get
  317. various errors when trying to <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code>, fork
  318. <code>&lt;java&gt;</code> or access environment
  319. variables.
  320. </a></li>
  321. <li><a href="#1.5-cygwin-sh">
  322. The <code>ant</code> wrapper script of Ant 1.5 fails
  323. for Cygwin if <code>ANT_HOME</code> is set to a Windows style
  324. path.
  325. </a></li>
  326. <li><a href="#1.5.2-zip-broken">
  327. <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> is broken in Ant 1.5.2.
  328. </a></li>
  329. </ul>
  330. <h3 class="section">Answers</h3>
  331. <p class="faq">
  332. <a name="latest-version"></a>
  333. Where do I find the latest version of this
  334. document?
  335. </p>
  336. <p>The latest version can always be found at Ant's homepage
  337. <a href="http://ant.apache.org/faq.html">http://ant.apache.org/faq.html</a>.</p>
  338. <p class="faq">
  339. <a name="adding-faqs"></a>
  340. How can I contribute to this FAQ?
  341. </p>
  342. <p>The page you are looking it is generated from
  343. <a href="http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs.cgi/~checkout~/ant/xdocs/faq.xml">this</a>
  344. document. If you want to add a new question, please submit
  345. a patch against this document to one of Ant's mailing lists;
  346. hopefully, the structure is self-explanatory.</p>
  347. <p>If you don't know how to create a patch, see the patches
  348. section of <a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/site/source.html">this
  349. page</a>.</p>
  350. <p class="faq">
  351. <a name="creating-faq"></a>
  352. How do you create the HTML version of this
  353. FAQ?
  354. </p>
  355. <p>We use
  356. <a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity/anakia.html">Anakia</a>
  357. to render the HTML version from the original XML file.</p>
  358. <p>The Velocity stylesheets used to process the XML files can
  359. be found in the <code>xdocs/stylesheets</code> subdirectory of
  360. Ant's CVS repository - the build file
  361. <code>docs.xml</code> at the top level of the ant CVS
  362. module is used to drive Anakia.</p>
  363. <p>This file assumes that you have the
  364. <code>jakarta-site2</code> CVS module checked out as well, but
  365. if you follow the instruction from Anakia's homepage, you
  366. should get it to work without that. Just make sure all
  367. required jars are in the task's classpath.</p>
  368. <p class="faq">
  369. <a name="what-is-ant"></a>
  370. What is Apache Ant?
  371. </p>
  372. <p> Ant is a Java-based build tool. In theory, it is kind of
  373. like Make, without Make's wrinkles and with the full
  374. portability of pure Java code.</p>
  375. <p class="faq">
  376. <a name="ant-name"></a>
  377. Why do you call it Ant?
  378. </p>
  379. <p>According to Ant's original author, James Duncan
  380. Davidson, the name is an acronym for "Another Neat
  381. Tool".</p>
  382. <p>Later explanations go along the lines of "ants
  383. do an extremely good job at building things", or
  384. "ants are very small and can carry a weight dozens of times
  385. their own" - describing what Ant is intended to
  386. be.</p>
  387. <p class="faq">
  388. <a name="history"></a>
  389. Tell us a little bit about Ant's history.
  390. </p>
  391. <p>Initially, Ant was part of the Tomcat code base, when it was
  392. donated to the Apache Software Foundation. It was
  393. created by James Duncan Davidson, who is also the original
  394. author of Tomcat. Ant was there to build Tomcat, nothing
  395. else.</p>
  396. <p>Soon thereafter, several open source Java projects realized
  397. that Ant could solve the problems they had with Makefiles.
  398. Starting with the projects hosted at Jakarta and the old Java
  399. Apache project, Ant spread like a virus and is now the build
  400. tool of choice for a lot of projects.</p>
  401. <p>In January 2000, Ant was moved to a separate CVS module and
  402. was promoted to a project of its own, independent of
  403. Tomcat, and became Apache Ant.</p>
  404. <p>The first version of Ant that was exposed to a larger audience
  405. was the one that shipped with Tomcat's 3.1 release on 19 April
  406. 2000. This version has later been referred to as Ant
  407. 0.3.1.</p>
  408. <p>The first official release of Ant as a stand-alone product was
  409. Ant 1.1, released on 19 July 2000. The complete release
  410. history:</p>
  411. <table class="ForrestTable" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="4">
  412. <tr>
  413. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  414. valign="top" align="left">
  415. Ant Version
  416. </th>
  417. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  418. valign="top" align="left">
  419. Release Date
  420. </th>
  421. </tr>
  422. <tr>
  423. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  424. valign="top" align="left">
  425. 1.1
  426. </td>
  427. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  428. valign="top" align="left">
  429. 19 July 2000
  430. </td>
  431. </tr>
  432. <tr>
  433. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  434. valign="top" align="left">
  435. 1.2
  436. </td>
  437. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  438. valign="top" align="left">
  439. 24 October 2000
  440. </td>
  441. </tr>
  442. <tr>
  443. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  444. valign="top" align="left">
  445. 1.3
  446. </td>
  447. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  448. valign="top" align="left">
  449. 3 March 2001
  450. </td>
  451. </tr>
  452. <tr>
  453. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  454. valign="top" align="left">
  455. 1.4
  456. </td>
  457. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  458. valign="top" align="left">
  459. 3 September 2001
  460. </td>
  461. </tr>
  462. <tr>
  463. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  464. valign="top" align="left">
  465. 1.4.1
  466. </td>
  467. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  468. valign="top" align="left">
  469. 11 October 2001
  470. </td>
  471. </tr>
  472. <tr>
  473. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  474. valign="top" align="left">
  475. 1.5
  476. </td>
  477. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  478. valign="top" align="left">
  479. 10 July 2002
  480. </td>
  481. </tr>
  482. <tr>
  483. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  484. valign="top" align="left">
  485. 1.5.1
  486. </td>
  487. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  488. valign="top" align="left">
  489. 3 October 2002
  490. </td>
  491. </tr>
  492. <tr>
  493. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  494. valign="top" align="left">
  495. 1.5.2
  496. </td>
  497. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  498. valign="top" align="left">
  499. 3 March 2003
  500. </td>
  501. </tr>
  502. <tr>
  503. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  504. valign="top" align="left">
  505. 1.5.3
  506. </td>
  507. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  508. valign="top" align="left">
  509. 9 April 2003
  510. </td>
  511. </tr>
  512. <tr>
  513. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  514. valign="top" align="left">
  515. 1.5.4
  516. </td>
  517. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  518. valign="top" align="left">
  519. 12 August 2003
  520. </td>
  521. </tr>
  522. </table>
  523. <p class="faq">
  524. <a name="no-gnu-tar"></a>
  525. I get checksum errors when I try to extract the
  526. <code>tar.gz</code> distribution file. Why?
  527. </p>
  528. <p>Ant's distribution contains file names that are longer
  529. than 100 characters, which is not supported by the standard
  530. tar file format. Several different implementations of tar use
  531. different and incompatible ways to work around this
  532. restriction.</p>
  533. <p>Ant's &lt;tar&gt; task can create tar archives that use
  534. the GNU tar extension, and this has been used when putting
  535. together the distribution. If you are using a different
  536. version of tar (for example, the one shipping with Solaris),
  537. you cannot use it to extract the archive.</p>
  538. <p>The solution is to either install GNU tar, which can be
  539. found <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/tar.html">here</a>,
  540. or use the zip archive instead (you can extract it using
  541. <code>jar xf</code>).</p>
  542. <p class="faq">
  543. <a name="adding-external-tasks"></a>
  544. How do I add an external task that I've written to the
  545. page "External Tools and Task"?
  546. </p>
  547. <p>Join and post a message to the dev or user mailing
  548. list (one list is enough), including the following
  549. information:</p>
  550. <ul>
  551. <li>the name of the task/tool</li>
  552. <li>a short description of the task/tool</li>
  553. <li>a Compatibility: entry stating with which version(s) of
  554. Ant the tool/task is compatible to</li>
  555. <li>a URL: entry linking to the main page of the tool/task</li>
  556. <li>a Contact: entry containing the email address or the URL
  557. of a webpage for the person or list to contact for issues
  558. related to the tool/task. <strong>Note that we'll add a
  559. link on the page, so any email address added there is not
  560. obfuscated and can (and probably will) be abused by robots
  561. harvesting websites for addresses to spam.</strong></li>
  562. <li>a License: entry containing the type of license for the
  563. tool/task</li>
  564. </ul>
  565. <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>
  566. document.</p>
  567. <p class="faq">
  568. <a name="passing-cli-args"></a>
  569. How do I pass parameters from the command line to my
  570. build file?
  571. </p>
  572. <p>Use properties. Using <code>ant
  573. -D<em>name</em>=<em>value</em></code> lets you define values for
  574. properties on the Ant command line. These properties can then be
  575. used within your build file as
  576. any normal property: <code>${<em>name</em>}</code> will put in
  577. <code><em>value</em></code>.</p>
  578. <p class="faq">
  579. <a name="jikes-switches"></a>
  580. How can I use Jikes-specific command-line
  581. switches?
  582. </p>
  583. <p>A couple of switches are supported via "magic"
  584. properties:</p>
  585. <table class="ForrestTable" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="4">
  586. <tr>
  587. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  588. valign="top" align="left">
  589. switch
  590. </th>
  591. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  592. valign="top" align="left">
  593. property
  594. </th>
  595. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  596. valign="top" align="left">
  597. default
  598. </th>
  599. </tr>
  600. <tr>
  601. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  602. valign="top" align="left">
  603. +E
  604. </td>
  605. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  606. valign="top" align="left">
  607. build.compiler.emacs
  608. </td>
  609. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  610. valign="top" align="left">
  611. false == not set
  612. </td>
  613. </tr>
  614. <tr>
  615. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  616. valign="top" align="left">
  617. +P
  618. </td>
  619. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  620. valign="top" align="left">
  621. build.compiler.pedantic
  622. </td>
  623. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  624. valign="top" align="left">
  625. false == not set
  626. </td>
  627. </tr>
  628. <tr>
  629. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  630. valign="top" align="left">
  631. +F
  632. </td>
  633. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  634. valign="top" align="left">
  635. build.compiler.fulldepend
  636. </td>
  637. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  638. valign="top" align="left">
  639. false == not set
  640. </td>
  641. </tr>
  642. <tr>
  643. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  644. valign="top" align="left">
  645. <strong>(Only for Ant &lt; 1.4; replaced by the
  646. <code><strong>nowarn</strong></code>
  647. attribute of the <code><strong>&lt;javac&gt;</strong></code>
  648. task after that.)</strong><br />-nowarn
  649. </td>
  650. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  651. valign="top" align="left">
  652. build.compiler.warnings
  653. </td>
  654. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  655. valign="top" align="left">
  656. true == not set
  657. </td>
  658. </tr>
  659. </table>
  660. <p>With Ant &gt;= 1.5, you can also use nested
  661. <code>&lt;compilerarg&gt;</code> elements with the
  662. <code>&lt;javac&gt;</code> task.</p>
  663. <p class="faq">
  664. <a name="shell-redirect-1"></a>
  665. How do I include a &lt; character in my command-line arguments?
  666. </p>
  667. <p>The short answer is "Use: <code>&amp;lt;</code>".</p>
  668. <p>The long answer is that this probably won't do what you
  669. want anyway (see <a href="#shell-redirect-2">the next
  670. section</a>).</p>
  671. <p class="faq">
  672. <a name="shell-redirect-2"></a>
  673. How do I redirect standard input or standard output
  674. in the <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code> task?
  675. </p>
  676. <p>Say you want to redirect the standard output stream of the
  677. <code>m4</code> command to write to a file, something
  678. like:</p>
  679. <pre class="code">
  680. shell-prompt&gt; m4 foo.m4 &gt; foo
  681. </pre>
  682. <p>and try to translate it into</p>
  683. <pre class="code">
  684. &lt;exec executable=&quot;m4&quot;&gt;
  685. &lt;arg value=&quot;foo.m4&quot;/&gt;
  686. &lt;arg value=&quot;&amp;gt;&quot;/&gt;
  687. &lt;arg value=&quot;foo&quot;/&gt;
  688. &lt;/exec&gt;
  689. </pre>
  690. <p>This will not do what you expect. The output redirection is
  691. performed by your shell, not the command itself, so this
  692. should read:</p>
  693. <pre class="code">
  694. &lt;exec executable=&quot;/bin/sh&quot;&gt;
  695. &lt;arg value=&quot;-c&quot; /&gt;
  696. &lt;arg value=&quot;m4 foo.m4 &amp;gt; foo&quot; /&gt;
  697. &lt;/exec&gt;
  698. </pre>
  699. <p>Note that you must use the <code>value</code> attribute of
  700. <code>&lt;arg&gt;</code> in the last element, in order to have
  701. the command passed as a single, quoted argument. Alternatively,
  702. you can use:</p>
  703. <pre class="code">
  704. &lt;exec executable=&quot;/bin/sh&quot;&gt;
  705. &lt;arg line='-c &quot;m4 foo.m4 &amp;gt; foo&quot;'/&gt;
  706. &lt;/exec&gt;
  707. </pre>
  708. <p>Note the double-quotes nested inside the single-quotes.</p>
  709. <p class="faq">
  710. <a name="batch-shell-execute"></a>
  711. How do I execute a batch file or shell script from Ant?
  712. </p>
  713. <p>On native Unix systems, you should be able to run shell scripts
  714. directly. On systems running a Unix-type shell (for example, Cygwin
  715. on Windows) execute the (command) shell instead - <code>cmd</code>
  716. for batch files, <code>sh</code> for shell scripts - then pass the
  717. batch file or shell script (plus any arguments to the script)
  718. as a single command, using the <code>/c</code> or
  719. <code>-c</code> switch, respectively. See
  720. <a href="#shell-redirect-2">the above section</a>
  721. for example <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code> tasks
  722. executing <code>sh</code>. For batch files, use something like:</p>
  723. <pre class="code">
  724. &lt;exec dir=&quot;.&quot; executable=&quot;cmd&quot; os=&quot;Windows NT&quot;&gt;
  725. &lt;arg line=&quot;/c test.bat&quot;/&gt;
  726. &lt;/exec&gt;
  727. </pre>
  728. <p class="faq">
  729. <a name="multi-conditions"></a>
  730. I want to execute a particular target only if
  731. multiple conditions are true.
  732. </p>
  733. <p>There are actually several answers to this question.</p>
  734. <p>If you have only one set and one unset property to test,
  735. you can specify both an <code>if</code> and an <code>unless</code>
  736. attribute for the target, and they will act as if they
  737. are "anded" together.</p>
  738. <p>If you are using a version of Ant 1.3 or earlier, the
  739. way to work with all other cases is to chain targets together
  740. to determine the specific state you want to test for.</p>
  741. <p>To see how this works, assume you have three properties:
  742. <code>prop1</code>, <code>prop2</code>, and <code>prop3</code>.
  743. You want to test that <code>prop1</code> and <code>prop2</code>
  744. are set, and that <code>prop3</code> is not. If the condition
  745. holds true you want to echo "yes".</p>
  746. <p>Here is the implementation in Ant 1.3 and earlier:</p>
  747. <pre class="code">
  748. &lt;target name=&quot;cond&quot; depends=&quot;cond-if&quot;/&gt;
  749. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-if&quot; if=&quot;prop1&quot;&gt;
  750. &lt;antcall target=&quot;cond-if-2&quot;/&gt;
  751. &lt;/target&gt;
  752. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-if-2&quot; if=&quot;prop2&quot;&gt;
  753. &lt;antcall target=&quot;cond-if-3&quot;/&gt;
  754. &lt;/target&gt;
  755. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-if-3&quot; unless=&quot;prop3&quot;&gt;
  756. &lt;echo message=&quot;yes&quot;/&gt;
  757. &lt;/target&gt;
  758. </pre>
  759. <p>Note: <code>&lt;antcall&gt;</code> tasks do <em>not</em> pass
  760. property changes back up to the environment they were called
  761. from, so you would'nt be able to, for example, set a
  762. <code>result</code> property in the <code>cond-if-3</code> target,
  763. then do
  764. <code>&lt;echo message="result is ${result}"/&gt;</code>
  765. in the <code>cond</code> target.</p>
  766. <p>Starting with Ant 1.4, you can use the
  767. <code>&lt;condition&gt;</code> task.</p>
  768. <pre class="code">
  769. &lt;target name=&quot;cond&quot; depends=&quot;cond-if,cond-else&quot;/&gt;
  770. &lt;target name=&quot;check-cond&quot;&gt;
  771. &lt;condition property=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
  772. &lt;and&gt;
  773. &lt;not&gt;
  774. &lt;equals arg1=&quot;${prop1}&quot; arg2=&quot;$${prop1}&quot; /&gt;
  775. &lt;/not&gt;
  776. &lt;not&gt;
  777. &lt;equals arg1=&quot;${prop2}&quot; arg2=&quot;$${prop2}&quot; /&gt;
  778. &lt;/not&gt;
  779. &lt;equals arg1=&quot;${prop3}&quot; arg2=&quot;$${prop3}&quot; /&gt;
  780. &lt;/and&gt;
  781. &lt;/condition&gt;
  782. &lt;/target&gt;
  783. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-if&quot; depends=&quot;check-cond&quot; if=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
  784. &lt;echo message=&quot;yes&quot;/&gt;
  785. &lt;/target&gt;
  786. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-else&quot; depends=&quot;check-cond&quot; unless=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
  787. &lt;echo message=&quot;no&quot;/&gt;
  788. &lt;/target&gt;
  789. </pre>
  790. <p>This version takes advantage of two things:</p>
  791. <ul>
  792. <li>If a property <code>a</code> has not been set,
  793. <code>${a}</code> will evaluate to <code>${a}</code>.</li>
  794. <li>To get a literal <code>$</code> in Ant, you have to
  795. escape it with another <code>$</code> - this will also break
  796. the special treatment of the <code>${</code> sequence.</li>
  797. </ul>
  798. <p>Because testing for a literal <code>${property}</code> string
  799. isn't all that readable or easy to understand,
  800. post-1.4.1 Ant introduces the <code>&lt;isset&gt;</code> element
  801. to the <code>&lt;condition&gt;</code> task.</p>
  802. <p>Here is the previous example done using
  803. <code>&lt;isset&gt;</code>:</p>
  804. <pre class="code">
  805. &lt;target name=&quot;check-cond&quot;&gt;
  806. &lt;condition property=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
  807. &lt;and&gt;
  808. &lt;isset property=&quot;prop1&quot;/&gt;
  809. &lt;isset property=&quot;prop2&quot;/&gt;
  810. &lt;not&gt;
  811. &lt;isset property=&quot;prop3&quot;/&gt;
  812. &lt;/not&gt;
  813. &lt;/and&gt;
  814. &lt;/condition&gt;
  815. &lt;/target&gt;
  816. </pre>
  817. <p>The last option is to use a scripting language to set the
  818. properties. This can be particularly handy when you need much
  819. finer control than the simple conditions shown here but, of
  820. course, comes with the overhead of adding JAR files to support
  821. the language, to say nothing of the added maintenance in requiring
  822. two languages to implement a single system. See the
  823. <a href="manual/OptionalTasks/script.html">
  824. <code>&lt;script&gt;</code> task documentation</a> for more
  825. details.</p>
  826. <p class="faq">
  827. <a name="encoding"></a>
  828. How can I include national characters like German
  829. umlauts in my build file?
  830. </p>
  831. <p>You need to tell the XML parser which character encoding
  832. your build file uses, this is done inside the <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xml-20001006#sec-prolog-dtd">XML
  833. declaration</a>.</p>
  834. <p>By default the parser assumes you are using the UTF-8
  835. encoding instead of your platform's default. For most Western
  836. European countries you should set the encoding to
  837. <code>ISO-8859-1</code>. To do so, make the very first line
  838. of you build file read like</p>
  839. <pre class="code">
  840. &lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot; encoding=&quot;ISO-8859-1&quot; ?&gt;
  841. </pre>
  842. <p class="faq">
  843. <a name="use-zip-instead-of-jar"></a>
  844. How do I use <code>jar</code>'s <code>M</code> switch?
  845. I don't want a MANIFEST.
  846. </p>
  847. <p>A JAR archive is a ZIP file, so if you don't want a
  848. MANIFEST you can simply use <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code>.</p>
  849. <p>If your file names contain national characters you should
  850. know that Sun's <code>jar</code> utility like Ant's
  851. <code>&lt;jar&gt;</code> uses UFT8 to encode their names while
  852. <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> uses your platforms default encoding.
  853. Use the encoding attribute of <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> if
  854. necessary.</p>
  855. <p class="faq">
  856. <a name="always-recompiles"></a>
  857. Why does Ant always recompile all my Java files?
  858. </p>
  859. <p>In order to find out which files should be compiled, Ant
  860. compares the timestamps of the source files to those of the
  861. resulting <code>.class</code> files. Opening all source files
  862. to find out which package they belong to would be very
  863. inefficient. Instead, Ant expects you to place your
  864. source files in a directory hierarchy that mirrors your
  865. package hierarchy and to point Ant to the root of this
  866. directory tree with the <code>srcdir</code> attribute.</p>
  867. <p>Say you have <code>&lt;javac srcdir="src"
  868. destdir="dest"/&gt;</code>. If Ant finds a file
  869. <code>src/a/b/C.java</code>, it expects it to be in package
  870. <code>a.b</code> so that the resulting <code>.class</code>
  871. file is going to be <code>dest/a/b/C.class</code>.</p>
  872. <p>If your source-tree directory structure does not match your
  873. package structure, Ant's heuristic won't work, and
  874. it will recompile classes that are up-to-date. Ant is not the
  875. only tool that expects a source-tree layout like this.</p>
  876. <p>If you have Java source files that aren't declared to
  877. be part of any package, you can still use the <code>&lt;javac&gt;</code>
  878. task to compile these files correctly - just set the
  879. <code>srcdir</code> and <code>destdir</code> attributes to
  880. the actual directory the source
  881. files live in and the directory the class files should go into,
  882. respectively.</p>
  883. <p class="faq">
  884. <a name="defaultexcludes"></a>
  885. I've used a <code>&lt;delete&gt;</code> task to
  886. delete unwanted SourceSafe control files (CVS files, editor
  887. backup files, etc.), but it doesn't seem to work; the files
  888. never get deleted. What's wrong?
  889. </p>
  890. <p>This is probably happening because, by default, Ant excludes
  891. SourceSafe control files (<code>vssver.scc</code>) and certain other
  892. files from FileSets.</p>
  893. <p>Here's what you probably did:</p>
  894. <pre class="code">
  895. &lt;delete&gt;
  896. &lt;fileset dir=&quot;${build.src}&quot; includes=&quot;**/vssver.scc&quot;/&gt;
  897. &lt;/delete&gt;
  898. </pre>
  899. <p>You need to switch off the default exclusions,
  900. and it will work:</p>
  901. <pre class="code">
  902. &lt;delete&gt;
  903. &lt;fileset dir=&quot;${build.src}&quot; includes=&quot;**/vssver.scc&quot;
  904. defaultexcludes=&quot;no&quot;/&gt;
  905. &lt;/delete&gt;
  906. </pre>
  907. <p>For a complete listing of the patterns that are excluded
  908. by default, see <a href="manual/dirtasks.html#defaultexcludes">the user
  909. manual</a>.</p>
  910. <p class="faq">
  911. <a name="stop-dependency"></a>
  912. I have a target I want to skip if a property is set,
  913. so I have <code>unless="property"</code> as an attribute
  914. of the target, but all the targets this target
  915. depends on are still executed. Why?
  916. </p>
  917. <p>The list of dependencies is generated by Ant before any of the
  918. targets are run. This allows dependent targets, such as an
  919. <code>init</code> target, to set properties that can control the
  920. execution of the targets higher in the dependency graph. This
  921. is a good thing.</p>
  922. <p>However, when your dependencies break down the
  923. higher-level task
  924. into several smaller steps, this behaviour becomes
  925. counter-intuitive. There are a couple of solutions available:
  926. </p>
  927. <ol>
  928. <li>Put the same condition on each of the dependent targets.</li>
  929. <li>Execute the steps using <code>&lt;antcall&gt;</code>,
  930. instead of specifying them inside the <code>depends</code>
  931. attribute.</li>
  932. </ol>
  933. <p class="faq">
  934. <a name="include-order"></a>
  935. In my <code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>, I've put in an
  936. <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> of all files followed by an
  937. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> of just the files I want, but it
  938. isn't giving me any files at all. What's wrong?
  939. </p>
  940. <p>The order of the <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> and
  941. <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> tags within a <code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>
  942. is ignored when the FileSet is created. Instead, all of the
  943. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> elements are processed together,
  944. followed by all of the <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code>
  945. elements. This means that the <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code>
  946. elements only apply to the file list produced by the
  947. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> elements.</p>
  948. <p>To get the files you want, focus on just the
  949. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> patterns that would be necessary
  950. to get them. If you find you need to trim the list that the
  951. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> elements produce, then use
  952. <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> elements.</p>
  953. <p class="faq">
  954. <a name="properties-not-trimmed"></a>
  955. <code>ant</code> failed to build my program via javac
  956. even when I put the needed jars in an external
  957. <code>build.properties</code> file and reference them by
  958. <code>pathelement</code> or <code>classpath refid</code>.
  959. </p>
  960. <p>When <code>ant</code> loads properties from an external
  961. file it dosn't touch the value of properties, trailing blanks
  962. will not be trimmed for example.</p>
  963. <p>If the value represents a file path, like a jar needed to
  964. compile, the task which requires the value, javac for example
  965. would fail to compile since it can't find the file due to
  966. trailing spaces.</p>
  967. <p class="faq">
  968. <a name="winzip-lies"></a>
  969. Ant creates WAR files with a lower-case
  970. <code>web-inf</code> or JAR files with a lower-case
  971. <code>meta-inf</code> directory.
  972. </p>
  973. <p>No it doesn't.</p>
  974. <p>You may have seen these lower-case directory names in
  975. WinZIP, but WinZIP is trying to be helpful (and fails). If
  976. WinZIP encounters a filename that is all upper-case, it
  977. assumes it has come from an old DOS box and changes the case to
  978. all lower-case for you.</p>
  979. <p>If you extract (or just check) the archive with jar, you
  980. will see that the names have the correct case.</p>
  981. <p>With WinZIP (version 8.1 at least), this can be corrected in the
  982. configuration. In the Options/Configuration menu, in the View tab, General
  983. section, check the "Allow all upper case files names" box. The META-INF and
  984. WEB-INF will look correct.</p>
  985. <p class="faq">
  986. <a name="integration"></a>
  987. Is Ant supported by my IDE/Editor?
  988. </p>
  989. <p>See the <a href="external.html#IDE and Editor Integration">section
  990. on IDE integration</a> on our External Tools and Tasks page.</p>
  991. <p class="faq">
  992. <a name="emacs-mode"></a>
  993. Why doesn't (X)Emacs/vi/MacOS X's project builder
  994. correctly parse the error messages generated by Ant?
  995. </p>
  996. <p>Ant adds a "banner" with the name of the current
  997. task in front of all logging messages - and there are no built-in
  998. regular expressions in your editor that would account for
  999. this.</p>
  1000. <p>You can disable this banner by invoking Ant with the
  1001. <code>-emacs</code> switch. To make Ant autodetect
  1002. Emacs' compile mode, put this into your
  1003. <code>.antrc</code> (contributed by Ville Skytt�).</p>
  1004. <pre class="code">
  1005. # Detect (X)Emacs compile mode
  1006. if [ &quot;$EMACS&quot; = &quot;t&quot; ] ; then
  1007. ANT_ARGS=&quot;$ANT_ARGS -emacs&quot;
  1008. ANT_OPTS=&quot;$ANT_OPTS -Dbuild.compiler.emacs=true&quot;
  1009. fi
  1010. </pre>
  1011. <p>Alternatively, you can add the following snippet to your
  1012. <code>.emacs</code> to make Emacs understand Ant's
  1013. output.</p>
  1014. <pre class="code">
  1015. (require 'compile)
  1016. (setq compilation-error-regexp-alist
  1017. (append (list
  1018. ;; works for jikes
  1019. '(&quot;^\\s-*\\[[^]]*\\]\\s-*\\(.+\\):\\([0-9]+\\):\\([0-9]+\\):[0-9]+:[0-9]+:&quot; 1 2 3)
  1020. ;; works for javac
  1021. '(&quot;^\\s-*\\[[^]]*\\]\\s-*\\(.+\\):\\([0-9]+\\):&quot; 1 2))
  1022. compilation-error-regexp-alist))
  1023. </pre>
  1024. <p>Yet another alternative that preserves most of Ant's
  1025. formatting is to pipe Ant's output through the following Perl
  1026. script by Dirk-Willem van Gulik:</p>
  1027. <pre class="code">
  1028. #!/usr/bin/perl
  1029. #
  1030. # May 2001 dirkx@apache.org - remove any
  1031. # [foo] lines from the output; keeping
  1032. # spacing more or less there.
  1033. #
  1034. $|=1;
  1035. while(&lt;STDIN&gt;) {
  1036. if (s/^(\s+)\[(\w+)\]//) {
  1037. if ($2 ne $last) {
  1038. print &quot;$1\[$2\]&quot;;
  1039. $s = ' ' x length($2);
  1040. } else {
  1041. print &quot;$1 $s &quot;;
  1042. };
  1043. $last = $2;
  1044. };
  1045. print;
  1046. };
  1047. </pre>
  1048. <p class="faq">
  1049. <a name="dtd"></a>
  1050. Is there a DTD that I can use to validate my build
  1051. files?
  1052. </p>
  1053. <p>An incomplete DTD can be created by the
  1054. <code>&lt;antstructure&gt;</code> task - but this one
  1055. has a few problems:</p>
  1056. <ul>
  1057. <li>It doesn't know about required attributes. Only
  1058. manual tweaking of this file can help here.</li>
  1059. <li>It is not complete - if you add new tasks via
  1060. <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> it won't know about it. See
  1061. <a href="http://www.sdv.fr/pages/casa/html/ant-dtd.en.html">this
  1062. page</a> by Michel Casabianca for a solution to this
  1063. problem. Note that the DTD you can download at this page
  1064. is based on Ant 0.3.1.</li>
  1065. <li>It may even be an invalid DTD. As Ant allows tasks
  1066. writers to define arbitrary elements, name collisions will
  1067. happen quite frequently - if your version of Ant contains
  1068. the optional <code>&lt;test&gt;</code> and
  1069. <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> tasks, there are two XML
  1070. elements named <code>test</code> (the task and the nested child
  1071. element of <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code>) with different attribute
  1072. lists. This problem cannot be solved; DTDs don't give a
  1073. syntax rich enough to support this.</li>
  1074. </ul>
  1075. <p class="faq">
  1076. <a name="xml-entity-include"></a>
  1077. How do I include an XML snippet in my build file?
  1078. </p>
  1079. <p>You can use XML's way of including external files and let
  1080. the parser do the job for Ant:</p>
  1081. <pre class="code">
  1082. &lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot;?&gt;
  1083. &lt;!DOCTYPE project [
  1084. &lt;!ENTITY common SYSTEM &quot;file:./common.xml&quot;&gt;
  1085. ]&gt;
  1086. &lt;project name=&quot;test&quot; default=&quot;test&quot; basedir=&quot;.&quot;&gt;
  1087. &lt;target name=&quot;setup&quot;&gt;
  1088. ...
  1089. &lt;/target&gt;
  1090. &amp;common;
  1091. ...
  1092. &lt;/project&gt;
  1093. </pre>
  1094. <p>will literally include the contents of <code>common.xml</code> where
  1095. you've placed the <code>&amp;common;</code> entity.</p>
  1096. <p>In combination with a DTD, this would look like this:</p>
  1097. <pre class="code">
  1098. &lt;!DOCTYPE project PUBLIC &quot;-//ANT//DTD project//EN&quot; &quot;file:./ant.dtd&quot; [
  1099. &lt;!ENTITY include SYSTEM &quot;file:./header.xml&quot;&gt;
  1100. ]&gt;
  1101. </pre>
  1102. <p>Starting with Ant 1.6, there is a new
  1103. <code>&lt;import&gt;</code> task that can (also) be used to
  1104. include build file fragments. Unlike the snippets used with
  1105. entity includes, the referenced files have to be complete Ant
  1106. build files, though.</p>
  1107. <p>The example above would become:</p>
  1108. <pre class="code">
  1109. &lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot;?&gt;
  1110. &lt;project name=&quot;test&quot; default=&quot;test&quot; basedir=&quot;.&quot;&gt;
  1111. &lt;target name=&quot;setup&quot;&gt;
  1112. ...
  1113. &lt;/target&gt;
  1114. &lt;import file=&quot;../common.xml&quot;/&gt;
  1115. ...
  1116. &lt;/project&gt;
  1117. </pre>
  1118. <p>Unlike entity includes, <code>&lt;import&gt;</code> will
  1119. let you use Ant properties in the file name.</p>
  1120. <p class="faq">
  1121. <a name="mail-logger"></a>
  1122. How do I send an email with the result of my build
  1123. process?
  1124. </p>
  1125. <p>If you are using a nightly build of Ant 1.5 after
  1126. 2001-12-14, you can use the built-in MailLogger:</p>
  1127. <pre class="code">
  1128. ant -logger org.apache.tools.ant.listener.MailLogger
  1129. </pre>
  1130. <p>See the <a href="http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs/~checkout~/ant/docs/manual/listeners.html?content-type=text/html">Listeners
  1131. &amp; Loggers</a> documentation for details on the properties
  1132. required.</p>
  1133. <p>For older versions of Ant, you can use a custom
  1134. BuildListener that sends out an email
  1135. in the buildFinished() method. Will Glozer
  1136. &lt;will.glozer@jda.com&gt; has written such a listener based
  1137. on <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/javamail/">JavaMail</a>.
  1138. The source is:</p>
  1139. <pre class="code">
  1140. import java.io.*;
  1141. import java.util.*;
  1142. import javax.mail.*;
  1143. import javax.mail.internet.*;
  1144. import org.apache.tools.ant.*;
  1145. /**
  1146. * A simple listener that waits for a build to finish and sends an email
  1147. * of the results. The settings are stored in &quot;monitor.properties&quot; and
  1148. * are fairly self explanatory.
  1149. *
  1150. * @author Will Glozer
  1151. * @version 1.05a 09/06/2000
  1152. */
  1153. public class BuildMonitor implements BuildListener {
  1154. protected Properties props;
  1155. /**
  1156. * Create a new BuildMonitor.
  1157. */
  1158. public BuildMonitor() throws Exception {
  1159. props = new Properties();
  1160. InputStream is = getClass().getResourceAsStream(&quot;monitor.properties&quot;);
  1161. props.load(is);
  1162. is.close();
  1163. }
  1164. public void buildStarted(BuildEvent e) {
  1165. }
  1166. /**
  1167. * Determine the status of the build and the actions to follow, now that
  1168. * the build has completed.
  1169. *
  1170. * @param e Event describing the build status.
  1171. */
  1172. public void buildFinished(BuildEvent e) {
  1173. Throwable th = e.getException();
  1174. String status = (th != null) ? &quot;failed&quot; : &quot;succeeded&quot;;
  1175. try {
  1176. String key = &quot;build.&quot; + status;
  1177. if (props.getProperty(key + &quot;.notify&quot;).equalsIgnoreCase(&quot;false&quot;)) {
  1178. return;
  1179. }
  1180. Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, null);
  1181. MimeMessage message = new MimeMessage(session);
  1182. message.addRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO, parseAddresses(
  1183. props.getProperty(key + &quot;.email.to&quot;)));
  1184. message.setSubject(props.getProperty(key + &quot;.email.subject&quot;));
  1185. BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(
  1186. props.getProperty(&quot;build.log&quot;)));
  1187. StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
  1188. String line = br.readLine();
  1189. while (line != null) {
  1190. sw.write(line);
  1191. sw.write(&quot;\n&quot;);
  1192. line = br.readLine();
  1193. }
  1194. br.close();
  1195. message.setText(sw.toString(), &quot;UTF-8&quot;);
  1196. sw.close();
  1197. Transport transport = session.getTransport();
  1198. transport.connect();
  1199. transport.send(message);
  1200. transport.close();
  1201. } catch (Exception ex) {
  1202. System.out.println(&quot;BuildMonitor failed to send email!&quot;);
  1203. ex.printStackTrace();
  1204. }
  1205. }
  1206. /**
  1207. * Parse a comma separated list of internet email addresses.
  1208. *
  1209. * @param s The list of addresses.
  1210. * @return Array of Addresses.
  1211. */
  1212. protected Address[] parseAddresses(String s) throws Exception {
  1213. StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(s, &quot;,&quot;);
  1214. Address[] addrs = new Address[st.countTokens()];
  1215. for (int i = 0; i &lt; addrs.length; i++) {
  1216. addrs[i] = new InternetAddress(st.nextToken());
  1217. }
  1218. return addrs;
  1219. }
  1220. public void messageLogged(BuildEvent e) {
  1221. }
  1222. public void targetStarted(BuildEvent e) {
  1223. }
  1224. public void targetFinished(BuildEvent e) {
  1225. }
  1226. public void taskStarted(BuildEvent e) {
  1227. }
  1228. public void taskFinished(BuildEvent e) {
  1229. }
  1230. }
  1231. </pre>
  1232. <p>With a <code>monitor.properties</code> like this:</p>
  1233. <pre class="code">
  1234. # configuration for build monitor
  1235. mail.transport.protocol=smtp
  1236. mail.smtp.host=&lt;host&gt;
  1237. mail.from=Will Glozer &lt;will.glozer@jda.com&gt;
  1238. build.log=build.log
  1239. build.failed.notify=true
  1240. build.failed.email.to=will.glozer@jda.com
  1241. build.failed.email.subject=Nightly build failed!
  1242. build.succeeded.notify=true
  1243. build.succeeded.email.to=will.glozer@jda.com
  1244. build.succeeded.email.subject=Nightly build succeeded!
  1245. </pre>
  1246. <p><code>monitor.properties</code> should be placed right next
  1247. to your compiled <code>BuildMonitor.class</code>. To use it,
  1248. invoke Ant like:</p>
  1249. <pre class="code">
  1250. ant -listener BuildMonitor -logfile build.log
  1251. </pre>
  1252. <p>Make sure that <code>mail.jar</code> from JavaMail and
  1253. <code>activation.jar</code> from the
  1254. <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/javabeans/glasgow/jaf.html">Java
  1255. Beans Activation Framework</a> are in your <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
  1256. <p class="faq">
  1257. <a name="listener-properties"></a>
  1258. How do I get at the properties that Ant was running
  1259. with from inside BuildListener?
  1260. </p>
  1261. <p>You can get at a hashtable with all the properties that Ant
  1262. has been using through the BuildEvent parameter. For
  1263. example:</p>
  1264. <pre class="code">
  1265. public void buildFinished(BuildEvent e) {
  1266. Hashtable table = e.getProject().getProperties();
  1267. String buildpath = (String)table.get(&quot;build.path&quot;);
  1268. ...
  1269. }
  1270. </pre>
  1271. <p>This is more accurate than just reading the same property
  1272. files that your project does, since it will give the correct
  1273. results for properties that were specified on the Ant command line.</p>
  1274. <p class="faq">
  1275. <a name="remove-cr"></a>
  1276. &lt;chmod&gt; or &lt;exec&gt; doesn't work in Ant
  1277. 1.3 on Unix
  1278. </p>
  1279. <p>The <code>antRun</code> script in <code>ANT_HOME/bin</code>
  1280. has DOS instead of Unix line endings; you must remove the
  1281. carriage-return characters from this file. This can be done by
  1282. using Ant's <code>&lt;fixcrlf&gt;</code> task
  1283. or something like:</p>
  1284. <pre class="code">
  1285. tr -d '\r' &lt; $ANT_HOME/bin/antRun &gt; /tmp/foo
  1286. mv /tmp/foo $ANT_HOME/bin/antRun
  1287. </pre>
  1288. <p class="faq">
  1289. <a name="javadoc-cannot-execute"></a>
  1290. JavaDoc failed: java.io.IOException: javadoc: cannot execute
  1291. </p>
  1292. <p>There is a bug in the Solaris reference implementation of
  1293. 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>).
  1294. This also appears to be true under Linux. Moving the JDK to
  1295. the front of the PATH fixes the problem.</p>
  1296. <p class="faq">
  1297. <a name="delegating-classloader"></a>
  1298. &lt;style&gt; or &lt;junit&gt; ignores my
  1299. &lt;classpath&gt;
  1300. </p>
  1301. <p>These tasks don't ignore your classpath setting, you
  1302. are facing a common problem with delegating classloaders.</p>
  1303. <p>First of all let's state that Ant adds all
  1304. <code>.jar</code> files from <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code> to
  1305. <code>CLASSPATH</code>, therefore "in
  1306. <code>CLASSPATH</code>" shall mean "either in your
  1307. <code>CLASSPATH</code> environment variable or
  1308. <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code>" for the rest of this
  1309. answer.</p>
  1310. <p>Technically the sentence above isn't true for Ant 1.6
  1311. and later anymore, but the result is the same. For the sake
  1312. of this discussion, <code>CLASSPATH</code> and
  1313. <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code> are identical.</p>
  1314. <p>This question collects a common type of problem: A task
  1315. needs an external library and it has a nested classpath
  1316. element so that you can point it to this external library, but
  1317. that doesn't work unless you put the external library into the
  1318. <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
  1319. <p>The root of the problem is that the class that needs the
  1320. external library is on the <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
  1321. <p>When you specify a nested <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> in
  1322. Ant, Ant creates a new class loader that uses the path you
  1323. have specified. It then tries to load additional classes from
  1324. this classloader.</p>
  1325. <p>In most cases - for example the two cases above - Ant
  1326. doesn't load the external library directly, it is the loaded
  1327. class that does so.</p>
  1328. <p>In the case of <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> it is the task
  1329. implementation itself and in the case of
  1330. <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> it is the implementation of the
  1331. <code>org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.XSLTLiaison</code>
  1332. class.</p>
  1333. <p>Ant's class loader implementation uses Java's
  1334. 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>
  1335. the paragraph</p>
  1336. <blockquote>The <code>ClassLoader</code> class uses a
  1337. delegation model to search for classes and resources. Each
  1338. instance of <code>ClassLoader</code> has an associated parent
  1339. class loader. When called upon to find a class or resource, a
  1340. <code>ClassLoader</code> instance will delegate the search for
  1341. the class or resource to its parent class loader before
  1342. attempting to find the class or resource itself. The virtual
  1343. machine's built-in class loader, called the bootstrap
  1344. class loader, does not itself have a parent but may serve as
  1345. the parent of a <code>ClassLoader</code>
  1346. instance.</blockquote>
  1347. <p>This means, Ant's class loader will consult the
  1348. bootstrap class loader first, which tries to load classes from
  1349. <code>CLASSPATH</code>. The bootstrap class loader
  1350. doesn't know anything about Ant's class loader or
  1351. even the path you have specified.</p>
  1352. <p>If the bootstrap class loader can load the class Ant has
  1353. asked it to load, this class will try to load the external
  1354. library from <code>CLASSPATH</code> as well - it doesn't
  1355. know anything else - and will not find it unless the library
  1356. is in <code>CLASSPATH</code> as well.</p>
  1357. <p>To solve this, you have two major options:</p>
  1358. <ol>
  1359. <li>put all external libraries you need in
  1360. <code>CLASSPATH</code> as well this is not what you want,
  1361. otherwise you wouldn't have found this FAQ entry.</li>
  1362. <li>remove the class that loads the external library from
  1363. the <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</li>
  1364. </ol>
  1365. <p><strong>Using The Second Option with Ant 1.5.4 and
  1366. Earlier:</strong></p>
  1367. <p>The easiest way to do this is to remove
  1368. <code>optional.jar</code> from <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code>. If
  1369. you do so, you will have to <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> all
  1370. optional tasks and use nested <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code>
  1371. elements in the <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> tasks that point
  1372. to the new location of <code>optional.jar</code>. Also,
  1373. don't forget to add the new location of
  1374. <code>optional.jar</code> to the
  1375. <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> of your
  1376. <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> or <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code>
  1377. task.</p>
  1378. <p>If you want to avoid to <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> all
  1379. optional tasks you need, the only other option is to remove
  1380. the classes that should not be loaded via the bootstrap class
  1381. loader from <code>optional.jar</code> and put them into a
  1382. separate archive. Add this separate archive to the
  1383. <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> of your
  1384. <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> or <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> task
  1385. - and make sure the separate archive is not in
  1386. <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
  1387. <p>In the case of <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> you'd have
  1388. to remove all classes that are in the
  1389. <code>org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/junit</code>
  1390. directory, in the <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> case it is one of
  1391. the <code>*Liaison</code> classes in
  1392. <code>org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional</code>.</p>
  1393. <p><strong>Using The Second Option with Ant 1.6 and
  1394. later:</strong></p>
  1395. <p>In Ant 1.6 <code>optional.jar</code> has been split into
  1396. multiple jars, each one containing classes with the same
  1397. dependencies on external libraries. You can move the
  1398. "offending" jar out of ANT_HOME/lib. For the
  1399. <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> task it would be
  1400. <code>ant-junit.jar</code> and for <code>&lt;style&gt;</code>
  1401. it would be <code>ant-trax.jar</code>,
  1402. <code>ant-xalan1.jar</code> or <code>ant-xslp.jar</code> -
  1403. depending on the processor you use.</p>
  1404. <p>If you use the option to break up <code>optional.jar</code>
  1405. for <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> or remove
  1406. <code>ant-junit.jar</code>, you still have to use a
  1407. <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> with a nested
  1408. <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> to define the junit task.</p>
  1409. <p class="faq">
  1410. <a name="winxp-jdk14-ant14"></a>
  1411. When running Ant 1.4 on Windows XP and JDK 1.4, I get
  1412. various errors when trying to <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code>, fork
  1413. <code>&lt;java&gt;</code> or access environment
  1414. variables.
  1415. </p>
  1416. <p>Ant &lt; 1.5 doesn't recognize Windows XP as a flavor
  1417. of Windows that runs <code>CMD.EXE</code> instead of
  1418. <code>COMMAND.COM</code>. JDK 1.3 will tell Ant that Windows
  1419. XP is Windows 2000 so the problem doesn't show up
  1420. there.</p>
  1421. <p>Apart from upgrading to Ant 1.5 or better, setting the
  1422. environment variable <code>ANT_OPTS</code> to
  1423. <code>-Dos.name=Windows_NT</code> prior to invoking Ant has
  1424. been confirmed as a workaround.</p>
  1425. <p class="faq">
  1426. <a name="1.5-cygwin-sh"></a>
  1427. The <code>ant</code> wrapper script of Ant 1.5 fails
  1428. for Cygwin if <code>ANT_HOME</code> is set to a Windows style
  1429. path.
  1430. </p>
  1431. <p>This problem has been reported only hours after Ant 1.5 has
  1432. been released, see <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10664">Bug
  1433. 10664</a> and all its duplicates.</p>
  1434. <p>A fixed version of the wrapper script can be found <a href="http://ant.apache.org/old-releases/v1.5/errata/">here</a>.
  1435. Simply replace your script with this version.</p>
  1436. <p class="faq">
  1437. <a name="1.5.2-zip-broken"></a>
  1438. <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> is broken in Ant 1.5.2.
  1439. </p>
  1440. <p>Yes, it is.</p>
  1441. <p>The problem reported by most people - see <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17648">Bug
  1442. 17648</a> and all its duplicates - is that Ant creates
  1443. archives that a partially unreadable by WinZIP. Luckily
  1444. <code>jar</code> deals with the archives and so the generated
  1445. jars/wars/ears will most likely work for you anyway.</p>
  1446. <p>There are additional problems, see bugs <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17780">Bug
  1447. 17780</a>, <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17871">Bug
  1448. 17871</a> and <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=18403">Bug
  1449. 18403</a>. All of them are supposed to be fixed with Ant
  1450. 1.5.3 (and only 18403 should exist in 1.5.3beta1).</p>
  1451. </div>
  1452. </div>
  1453. <p class="copyright">
  1454. Copyright &copy; 2000-2003&nbsp;The Apache Software Foundation. All rights reserved.
  1455. <script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript"><!--
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