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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. <li><a href="#propertyvalue-as-name-for-property">
  236. How can I do something like <code>&lt;property name="prop"
  237. value="${${anotherprop}}"/&gt;</code> (double expanding the property)?
  238. </a></li>
  239. </ul>
  240. <h4 class="toc">It doesn't work (as expected)</h4>
  241. <ul>
  242. <li><a href="#always-recompiles">
  243. Why does Ant always recompile all my Java files?
  244. </a></li>
  245. <li><a href="#defaultexcludes">
  246. I've used a <code>&lt;delete&gt;</code> task to
  247. delete unwanted SourceSafe control files (CVS files, editor
  248. backup files, etc.), but it doesn't seem to work; the files
  249. never get deleted. What's wrong?
  250. </a></li>
  251. <li><a href="#stop-dependency">
  252. I have a target I want to skip if a property is set,
  253. so I have <code>unless="property"</code> as an attribute
  254. of the target, but all the targets this target
  255. depends on are still executed. Why?
  256. </a></li>
  257. <li><a href="#include-order">
  258. In my <code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>, I've put in an
  259. <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> of all files followed by an
  260. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> of just the files I want, but it
  261. isn't giving me any files at all. What's wrong?
  262. </a></li>
  263. <li><a href="#properties-not-trimmed">
  264. <code>ant</code> failed to build my program via javac
  265. even when I put the needed jars in an external
  266. <code>build.properties</code> file and reference them by
  267. <code>pathelement</code> or <code>classpath refid</code>.
  268. </a></li>
  269. <li><a href="#winzip-lies">
  270. Ant creates WAR files with a lower-case
  271. <code>web-inf</code> or JAR files with a lower-case
  272. <code>meta-inf</code> directory.
  273. </a></li>
  274. </ul>
  275. <h4 class="toc">Ant and IDEs/Editors</h4>
  276. <ul>
  277. <li><a href="#integration">
  278. Is Ant supported by my IDE/Editor?
  279. </a></li>
  280. <li><a href="#emacs-mode">
  281. Why doesn't (X)Emacs/vi/MacOS X's project builder
  282. correctly parse the error messages generated by Ant?
  283. </a></li>
  284. </ul>
  285. <h4 class="toc">Advanced Issues</h4>
  286. <ul>
  287. <li><a href="#dtd">
  288. Is there a DTD that I can use to validate my build
  289. files?
  290. </a></li>
  291. <li><a href="#xml-entity-include">
  292. How do I include an XML snippet in my build file?
  293. </a></li>
  294. <li><a href="#mail-logger">
  295. How do I send an email with the result of my build
  296. process?
  297. </a></li>
  298. <li><a href="#listener-properties">
  299. How do I get at the properties that Ant was running
  300. with from inside BuildListener?
  301. </a></li>
  302. </ul>
  303. <h4 class="toc">Known Problems</h4>
  304. <ul>
  305. <li><a href="#remove-cr">
  306. &lt;chmod&gt; or &lt;exec&gt; doesn't work in Ant
  307. 1.3 on Unix
  308. </a></li>
  309. <li><a href="#javadoc-cannot-execute">
  310. JavaDoc failed: java.io.IOException: javadoc: cannot execute
  311. </a></li>
  312. <li><a href="#delegating-classloader">
  313. &lt;style&gt; or &lt;junit&gt; ignores my
  314. &lt;classpath&gt;
  315. </a></li>
  316. <li><a href="#winxp-jdk14-ant14">
  317. When running Ant 1.4 on Windows XP and JDK 1.4, I get
  318. various errors when trying to <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code>, fork
  319. <code>&lt;java&gt;</code> or access environment
  320. variables.
  321. </a></li>
  322. <li><a href="#1.5-cygwin-sh">
  323. The <code>ant</code> wrapper script of Ant 1.5 fails
  324. for Cygwin if <code>ANT_HOME</code> is set to a Windows style
  325. path.
  326. </a></li>
  327. <li><a href="#1.5.2-zip-broken">
  328. <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> is broken in Ant 1.5.2.
  329. </a></li>
  330. <li><a href="#unknownelement.taskcontainer">
  331. Why do my custom task containers see Unknown Elements in Ant 1.6
  332. - they worked in Ant 1.5?
  333. </a></li>
  334. <li><a href="#java.exception.stacktrace">
  335. The program I run via &lt;java&gt; throws an exception but I
  336. can't seem to get the full stack trace.
  337. </a></li>
  338. <li><a href="#junit-no-runtime-xml">
  339. Using format="xml", &lt;junit&gt; fails with a
  340. <code>NoClassDefFoundError</code> if forked.
  341. </a></li>
  342. </ul>
  343. <h3 class="section">Answers</h3>
  344. <p class="faq">
  345. <a name="latest-version"></a>
  346. Where do I find the latest version of this
  347. document?
  348. </p>
  349. <p>The latest version can always be found at Ant's homepage
  350. <a href="http://ant.apache.org/faq.html">http://ant.apache.org/faq.html</a>.</p>
  351. <p class="faq">
  352. <a name="adding-faqs"></a>
  353. How can I contribute to this FAQ?
  354. </p>
  355. <p>The page you are looking it is generated from
  356. <a href="http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs.cgi/~checkout~/ant/xdocs/faq.xml">this</a>
  357. document. If you want to add a new question, please submit
  358. a patch against this document to one of Ant's mailing lists;
  359. hopefully, the structure is self-explanatory.</p>
  360. <p>If you don't know how to create a patch, see the patches
  361. section of <a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/site/source.html">this
  362. page</a>.</p>
  363. <p class="faq">
  364. <a name="creating-faq"></a>
  365. How do you create the HTML version of this
  366. FAQ?
  367. </p>
  368. <p>We use
  369. <a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity/anakia.html">Anakia</a>
  370. to render the HTML version from the original XML file.</p>
  371. <p>The Velocity stylesheets used to process the XML files can
  372. be found in the <code>xdocs/stylesheets</code> subdirectory of
  373. Ant's CVS repository - the build file
  374. <code>docs.xml</code> at the top level of the ant CVS
  375. module is used to drive Anakia.</p>
  376. <p>This file assumes that you have the
  377. <code>jakarta-site2</code> CVS module checked out as well, but
  378. if you follow the instruction from Anakia's homepage, you
  379. should get it to work without that. Just make sure all
  380. required jars are in the task's classpath.</p>
  381. <p class="faq">
  382. <a name="what-is-ant"></a>
  383. What is Apache Ant?
  384. </p>
  385. <p> Ant is a Java-based build tool. In theory, it is kind of
  386. like Make, without Make's wrinkles and with the full
  387. portability of pure Java code.</p>
  388. <p class="faq">
  389. <a name="ant-name"></a>
  390. Why do you call it Ant?
  391. </p>
  392. <p>According to Ant's original author, James Duncan
  393. Davidson, the name is an acronym for "Another Neat
  394. Tool".</p>
  395. <p>Later explanations go along the lines of "ants
  396. do an extremely good job at building things", or
  397. "ants are very small and can carry a weight dozens of times
  398. their own" - describing what Ant is intended to
  399. be.</p>
  400. <p class="faq">
  401. <a name="history"></a>
  402. Tell us a little bit about Ant's history.
  403. </p>
  404. <p>Initially, Ant was part of the Tomcat code base, when it was
  405. donated to the Apache Software Foundation. It was
  406. created by James Duncan Davidson, who is also the original
  407. author of Tomcat. Ant was there to build Tomcat, nothing
  408. else.</p>
  409. <p>Soon thereafter, several open source Java projects realized
  410. that Ant could solve the problems they had with Makefiles.
  411. Starting with the projects hosted at Jakarta and the old Java
  412. Apache project, Ant spread like a virus and is now the build
  413. tool of choice for a lot of projects.</p>
  414. <p>In January 2000, Ant was moved to a separate CVS module and
  415. was promoted to a project of its own, independent of
  416. Tomcat, and became Apache Ant.</p>
  417. <p>The first version of Ant that was exposed to a larger audience
  418. was the one that shipped with Tomcat's 3.1 release on 19 April
  419. 2000. This version has later been referred to as Ant
  420. 0.3.1.</p>
  421. <p>The first official release of Ant as a stand-alone product was
  422. Ant 1.1, released on 19 July 2000. The complete release
  423. history:</p>
  424. <table class="ForrestTable" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="4">
  425. <tr>
  426. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  427. valign="top" align="left">
  428. Ant Version
  429. </th>
  430. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  431. valign="top" align="left">
  432. Release Date
  433. </th>
  434. </tr>
  435. <tr>
  436. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  437. valign="top" align="left">
  438. 1.1
  439. </td>
  440. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  441. valign="top" align="left">
  442. 19 July 2000
  443. </td>
  444. </tr>
  445. <tr>
  446. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  447. valign="top" align="left">
  448. 1.2
  449. </td>
  450. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  451. valign="top" align="left">
  452. 24 October 2000
  453. </td>
  454. </tr>
  455. <tr>
  456. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  457. valign="top" align="left">
  458. 1.3
  459. </td>
  460. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  461. valign="top" align="left">
  462. 3 March 2001
  463. </td>
  464. </tr>
  465. <tr>
  466. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  467. valign="top" align="left">
  468. 1.4
  469. </td>
  470. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  471. valign="top" align="left">
  472. 3 September 2001
  473. </td>
  474. </tr>
  475. <tr>
  476. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  477. valign="top" align="left">
  478. 1.4.1
  479. </td>
  480. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  481. valign="top" align="left">
  482. 11 October 2001
  483. </td>
  484. </tr>
  485. <tr>
  486. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  487. valign="top" align="left">
  488. 1.5
  489. </td>
  490. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  491. valign="top" align="left">
  492. 10 July 2002
  493. </td>
  494. </tr>
  495. <tr>
  496. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  497. valign="top" align="left">
  498. 1.5.1
  499. </td>
  500. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  501. valign="top" align="left">
  502. 3 October 2002
  503. </td>
  504. </tr>
  505. <tr>
  506. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  507. valign="top" align="left">
  508. 1.5.2
  509. </td>
  510. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  511. valign="top" align="left">
  512. 3 March 2003
  513. </td>
  514. </tr>
  515. <tr>
  516. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  517. valign="top" align="left">
  518. 1.5.3
  519. </td>
  520. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  521. valign="top" align="left">
  522. 9 April 2003
  523. </td>
  524. </tr>
  525. <tr>
  526. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  527. valign="top" align="left">
  528. 1.5.4
  529. </td>
  530. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  531. valign="top" align="left">
  532. 12 August 2003
  533. </td>
  534. </tr>
  535. <tr>
  536. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  537. valign="top" align="left">
  538. 1.6.0
  539. </td>
  540. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  541. valign="top" align="left">
  542. 18 December 2003
  543. </td>
  544. </tr>
  545. <tr>
  546. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  547. valign="top" align="left">
  548. 1.6.1
  549. </td>
  550. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  551. valign="top" align="left">
  552. 12 February 2004
  553. </td>
  554. </tr>
  555. </table>
  556. <p class="faq">
  557. <a name="no-gnu-tar"></a>
  558. I get checksum errors when I try to extract the
  559. <code>tar.gz</code> distribution file. Why?
  560. </p>
  561. <p>Ant's distribution contains file names that are longer
  562. than 100 characters, which is not supported by the standard
  563. tar file format. Several different implementations of tar use
  564. different and incompatible ways to work around this
  565. restriction.</p>
  566. <p>Ant's &lt;tar&gt; task can create tar archives that use
  567. the GNU tar extension, and this has been used when putting
  568. together the distribution. If you are using a different
  569. version of tar (for example, the one shipping with Solaris),
  570. you cannot use it to extract the archive.</p>
  571. <p>The solution is to either install GNU tar, which can be
  572. found <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/tar.html">here</a>,
  573. or use the zip archive instead (you can extract it using
  574. <code>jar xf</code>).</p>
  575. <p class="faq">
  576. <a name="adding-external-tasks"></a>
  577. How do I add an external task that I've written to the
  578. page "External Tools and Task"?
  579. </p>
  580. <p>Join and post a message to the dev or user mailing
  581. list (one list is enough), including the following
  582. information:</p>
  583. <ul>
  584. <li>the name of the task/tool</li>
  585. <li>a short description of the task/tool</li>
  586. <li>a Compatibility: entry stating with which version(s) of
  587. Ant the tool/task is compatible to</li>
  588. <li>a URL: entry linking to the main page of the tool/task</li>
  589. <li>a Contact: entry containing the email address or the URL
  590. of a webpage for the person or list to contact for issues
  591. related to the tool/task. <strong>Note that we'll add a
  592. link on the page, so any email address added there is not
  593. obfuscated and can (and probably will) be abused by robots
  594. harvesting websites for addresses to spam.</strong></li>
  595. <li>a License: entry containing the type of license for the
  596. tool/task</li>
  597. </ul>
  598. <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>
  599. document.</p>
  600. <p class="faq">
  601. <a name="passing-cli-args"></a>
  602. How do I pass parameters from the command line to my
  603. build file?
  604. </p>
  605. <p>Use properties. Using <code>ant
  606. -D<em>name</em>=<em>value</em></code> lets you define values for
  607. properties on the Ant command line. These properties can then be
  608. used within your build file as
  609. any normal property: <code>${<em>name</em>}</code> will put in
  610. <code><em>value</em></code>.</p>
  611. <p class="faq">
  612. <a name="jikes-switches"></a>
  613. How can I use Jikes-specific command-line
  614. switches?
  615. </p>
  616. <p>A couple of switches are supported via "magic"
  617. properties:</p>
  618. <table class="ForrestTable" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="4">
  619. <tr>
  620. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  621. valign="top" align="left">
  622. switch
  623. </th>
  624. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  625. valign="top" align="left">
  626. property
  627. </th>
  628. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  629. valign="top" align="left">
  630. default
  631. </th>
  632. </tr>
  633. <tr>
  634. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  635. valign="top" align="left">
  636. +E
  637. </td>
  638. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  639. valign="top" align="left">
  640. build.compiler.emacs
  641. </td>
  642. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  643. valign="top" align="left">
  644. false == not set
  645. </td>
  646. </tr>
  647. <tr>
  648. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  649. valign="top" align="left">
  650. +P
  651. </td>
  652. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  653. valign="top" align="left">
  654. build.compiler.pedantic
  655. </td>
  656. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  657. valign="top" align="left">
  658. false == not set
  659. </td>
  660. </tr>
  661. <tr>
  662. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  663. valign="top" align="left">
  664. +F
  665. </td>
  666. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  667. valign="top" align="left">
  668. build.compiler.fulldepend
  669. </td>
  670. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  671. valign="top" align="left">
  672. false == not set
  673. </td>
  674. </tr>
  675. <tr>
  676. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  677. valign="top" align="left">
  678. <strong>(Only for Ant &lt; 1.4; replaced by the
  679. <code><strong>nowarn</strong></code>
  680. attribute of the <code><strong>&lt;javac&gt;</strong></code>
  681. task after that.)</strong><br />-nowarn
  682. </td>
  683. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  684. valign="top" align="left">
  685. build.compiler.warnings
  686. </td>
  687. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  688. valign="top" align="left">
  689. true == not set
  690. </td>
  691. </tr>
  692. </table>
  693. <p>With Ant &gt;= 1.5, you can also use nested
  694. <code>&lt;compilerarg&gt;</code> elements with the
  695. <code>&lt;javac&gt;</code> task.</p>
  696. <p class="faq">
  697. <a name="shell-redirect-1"></a>
  698. How do I include a &lt; character in my command-line arguments?
  699. </p>
  700. <p>The short answer is "Use: <code>&amp;lt;</code>".</p>
  701. <p>The long answer is that this probably won't do what you
  702. want anyway (see <a href="#shell-redirect-2">the next
  703. section</a>).</p>
  704. <p class="faq">
  705. <a name="shell-redirect-2"></a>
  706. How do I redirect standard input or standard output
  707. in the <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code> task?
  708. </p>
  709. <p>Say you want to redirect the standard output stream of the
  710. <code>m4</code> command to write to a file, something
  711. like:</p>
  712. <pre class="code">
  713. shell-prompt&gt; m4 foo.m4 &gt; foo
  714. </pre>
  715. <p>and try to translate it into</p>
  716. <pre class="code">
  717. &lt;exec executable=&quot;m4&quot;&gt;
  718. &lt;arg value=&quot;foo.m4&quot;/&gt;
  719. &lt;arg value=&quot;&amp;gt;&quot;/&gt;
  720. &lt;arg value=&quot;foo&quot;/&gt;
  721. &lt;/exec&gt;
  722. </pre>
  723. <p>This will not do what you expect. The output redirection is
  724. performed by your shell, not the command itself, so this
  725. should read:</p>
  726. <pre class="code">
  727. &lt;exec executable=&quot;/bin/sh&quot;&gt;
  728. &lt;arg value=&quot;-c&quot; /&gt;
  729. &lt;arg value=&quot;m4 foo.m4 &amp;gt; foo&quot; /&gt;
  730. &lt;/exec&gt;
  731. </pre>
  732. <p>Note that you must use the <code>value</code> attribute of
  733. <code>&lt;arg&gt;</code> in the last element, in order to have
  734. the command passed as a single, quoted argument. Alternatively,
  735. you can use:</p>
  736. <pre class="code">
  737. &lt;exec executable=&quot;/bin/sh&quot;&gt;
  738. &lt;arg line='-c &quot;m4 foo.m4 &amp;gt; foo&quot;'/&gt;
  739. &lt;/exec&gt;
  740. </pre>
  741. <p>Note the double-quotes nested inside the single-quotes.</p>
  742. <p class="faq">
  743. <a name="batch-shell-execute"></a>
  744. How do I execute a batch file or shell script from Ant?
  745. </p>
  746. <p>On native Unix systems, you should be able to run shell scripts
  747. directly. On systems running a Unix-type shell (for example, Cygwin
  748. on Windows) execute the (command) shell instead - <code>cmd</code>
  749. for batch files, <code>sh</code> for shell scripts - then pass the
  750. batch file or shell script (plus any arguments to the script)
  751. as a single command, using the <code>/c</code> or
  752. <code>-c</code> switch, respectively. See
  753. <a href="#shell-redirect-2">the above section</a>
  754. for example <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code> tasks
  755. executing <code>sh</code>. For batch files, use something like:</p>
  756. <pre class="code">
  757. &lt;exec dir=&quot;.&quot; executable=&quot;cmd&quot; os=&quot;Windows NT&quot;&gt;
  758. &lt;arg line=&quot;/c test.bat&quot;/&gt;
  759. &lt;/exec&gt;
  760. </pre>
  761. <p class="faq">
  762. <a name="multi-conditions"></a>
  763. I want to execute a particular target only if
  764. multiple conditions are true.
  765. </p>
  766. <p>There are actually several answers to this question.</p>
  767. <p>If you have only one set and one unset property to test,
  768. you can specify both an <code>if</code> and an <code>unless</code>
  769. attribute for the target, and they will act as if they
  770. are "anded" together.</p>
  771. <p>If you are using a version of Ant 1.3 or earlier, the
  772. way to work with all other cases is to chain targets together
  773. to determine the specific state you want to test for.</p>
  774. <p>To see how this works, assume you have three properties:
  775. <code>prop1</code>, <code>prop2</code>, and <code>prop3</code>.
  776. You want to test that <code>prop1</code> and <code>prop2</code>
  777. are set, and that <code>prop3</code> is not. If the condition
  778. holds true you want to echo "yes".</p>
  779. <p>Here is the implementation in Ant 1.3 and earlier:</p>
  780. <pre class="code">
  781. &lt;target name=&quot;cond&quot; depends=&quot;cond-if&quot;/&gt;
  782. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-if&quot; if=&quot;prop1&quot;&gt;
  783. &lt;antcall target=&quot;cond-if-2&quot;/&gt;
  784. &lt;/target&gt;
  785. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-if-2&quot; if=&quot;prop2&quot;&gt;
  786. &lt;antcall target=&quot;cond-if-3&quot;/&gt;
  787. &lt;/target&gt;
  788. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-if-3&quot; unless=&quot;prop3&quot;&gt;
  789. &lt;echo message=&quot;yes&quot;/&gt;
  790. &lt;/target&gt;
  791. </pre>
  792. <p>Note: <code>&lt;antcall&gt;</code> tasks do <em>not</em> pass
  793. property changes back up to the environment they were called
  794. from, so you would'nt be able to, for example, set a
  795. <code>result</code> property in the <code>cond-if-3</code> target,
  796. then do
  797. <code>&lt;echo message="result is ${result}"/&gt;</code>
  798. in the <code>cond</code> target.</p>
  799. <p>Starting with Ant 1.4, you can use the
  800. <code>&lt;condition&gt;</code> task.</p>
  801. <pre class="code">
  802. &lt;target name=&quot;cond&quot; depends=&quot;cond-if,cond-else&quot;/&gt;
  803. &lt;target name=&quot;check-cond&quot;&gt;
  804. &lt;condition property=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
  805. &lt;and&gt;
  806. &lt;not&gt;
  807. &lt;equals arg1=&quot;${prop1}&quot; arg2=&quot;$${prop1}&quot; /&gt;
  808. &lt;/not&gt;
  809. &lt;not&gt;
  810. &lt;equals arg1=&quot;${prop2}&quot; arg2=&quot;$${prop2}&quot; /&gt;
  811. &lt;/not&gt;
  812. &lt;equals arg1=&quot;${prop3}&quot; arg2=&quot;$${prop3}&quot; /&gt;
  813. &lt;/and&gt;
  814. &lt;/condition&gt;
  815. &lt;/target&gt;
  816. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-if&quot; depends=&quot;check-cond&quot; if=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
  817. &lt;echo message=&quot;yes&quot;/&gt;
  818. &lt;/target&gt;
  819. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-else&quot; depends=&quot;check-cond&quot; unless=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
  820. &lt;echo message=&quot;no&quot;/&gt;
  821. &lt;/target&gt;
  822. </pre>
  823. <p>This version takes advantage of two things:</p>
  824. <ul>
  825. <li>If a property <code>a</code> has not been set,
  826. <code>${a}</code> will evaluate to <code>${a}</code>.</li>
  827. <li>To get a literal <code>$</code> in Ant, you have to
  828. escape it with another <code>$</code> - this will also break
  829. the special treatment of the <code>${</code> sequence.</li>
  830. </ul>
  831. <p>Because testing for a literal <code>${property}</code> string
  832. isn't all that readable or easy to understand,
  833. post-1.4.1 Ant introduces the <code>&lt;isset&gt;</code> element
  834. to the <code>&lt;condition&gt;</code> task.</p>
  835. <p>Here is the previous example done using
  836. <code>&lt;isset&gt;</code>:</p>
  837. <pre class="code">
  838. &lt;target name=&quot;check-cond&quot;&gt;
  839. &lt;condition property=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
  840. &lt;and&gt;
  841. &lt;isset property=&quot;prop1&quot;/&gt;
  842. &lt;isset property=&quot;prop2&quot;/&gt;
  843. &lt;not&gt;
  844. &lt;isset property=&quot;prop3&quot;/&gt;
  845. &lt;/not&gt;
  846. &lt;/and&gt;
  847. &lt;/condition&gt;
  848. &lt;/target&gt;
  849. </pre>
  850. <p>The last option is to use a scripting language to set the
  851. properties. This can be particularly handy when you need much
  852. finer control than the simple conditions shown here but, of
  853. course, comes with the overhead of adding JAR files to support
  854. the language, to say nothing of the added maintenance in requiring
  855. two languages to implement a single system. See the
  856. <a href="manual/OptionalTasks/script.html">
  857. <code>&lt;script&gt;</code> task documentation</a> for more
  858. details.</p>
  859. <p class="faq">
  860. <a name="encoding"></a>
  861. How can I include national characters like German
  862. umlauts in my build file?
  863. </p>
  864. <p>You need to tell the XML parser which character encoding
  865. your build file uses, this is done inside the <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xml-20001006#sec-prolog-dtd">XML
  866. declaration</a>.</p>
  867. <p>By default the parser assumes you are using the UTF-8
  868. encoding instead of your platform's default. For most Western
  869. European countries you should set the encoding to
  870. <code>ISO-8859-1</code>. To do so, make the very first line
  871. of you build file read like</p>
  872. <pre class="code">
  873. &lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot; encoding=&quot;ISO-8859-1&quot; ?&gt;
  874. </pre>
  875. <p class="faq">
  876. <a name="use-zip-instead-of-jar"></a>
  877. How do I use <code>jar</code>'s <code>M</code> switch?
  878. I don't want a MANIFEST.
  879. </p>
  880. <p>A JAR archive is a ZIP file, so if you don't want a
  881. MANIFEST you can simply use <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code>.</p>
  882. <p>If your file names contain national characters you should
  883. know that Sun's <code>jar</code> utility like Ant's
  884. <code>&lt;jar&gt;</code> uses UFT8 to encode their names while
  885. <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> uses your platforms default encoding.
  886. Use the encoding attribute of <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> if
  887. necessary.</p>
  888. <p class="faq">
  889. <a name="propertyvalue-as-name-for-property"></a>
  890. How can I do something like <code>&lt;property name="prop"
  891. value="${${anotherprop}}"/&gt;</code> (double expanding the property)?
  892. </p>
  893. <p>Without any external help you can not.</p>
  894. <p>With &lt;script/&gt;, which needs external libraries, you can do</p>
  895. <pre class="code">
  896. &lt;script language=&quot;javascript&quot;&gt;
  897. propname = project.getProperty(&quot;anotherprop&quot;);
  898. project.setNewProperty(&quot;prop&quot;, propname);
  899. &lt;/script&gt;
  900. </pre>
  901. <p>With AntContrib (external task library) you can do <code>
  902. &lt;propertycopy name="prop" from="${anotherprop}"/&gt;</code>.</p>
  903. <p>With Ant 1.6 you can simulate the AntContribs &lt;propertycopy&gt;
  904. and avoid the need of an external library:</p>
  905. <pre class="code">
  906. &lt;macrodef name=&quot;propertycopy&quot;&gt;
  907. &lt;attribute name=&quot;name&quot;/&gt;
  908. &lt;attribute name=&quot;from&quot;/&gt;
  909. &lt;sequential&gt;
  910. &lt;property name=&quot;@{name}&quot; value=&quot;${@{from}}&quot;/&gt;
  911. &lt;/sequential&gt;
  912. &lt;/macrodef&gt;
  913. </pre>
  914. <p class="faq">
  915. <a name="always-recompiles"></a>
  916. Why does Ant always recompile all my Java files?
  917. </p>
  918. <p>In order to find out which files should be compiled, Ant
  919. compares the timestamps of the source files to those of the
  920. resulting <code>.class</code> files. Opening all source files
  921. to find out which package they belong to would be very
  922. inefficient. Instead, Ant expects you to place your
  923. source files in a directory hierarchy that mirrors your
  924. package hierarchy and to point Ant to the root of this
  925. directory tree with the <code>srcdir</code> attribute.</p>
  926. <p>Say you have <code>&lt;javac srcdir="src"
  927. destdir="dest"/&gt;</code>. If Ant finds a file
  928. <code>src/a/b/C.java</code>, it expects it to be in package
  929. <code>a.b</code> so that the resulting <code>.class</code>
  930. file is going to be <code>dest/a/b/C.class</code>.</p>
  931. <p>If your source-tree directory structure does not match your
  932. package structure, Ant's heuristic won't work, and
  933. it will recompile classes that are up-to-date. Ant is not the
  934. only tool that expects a source-tree layout like this.</p>
  935. <p>If you have Java source files that aren't declared to
  936. be part of any package, you can still use the <code>&lt;javac&gt;</code>
  937. task to compile these files correctly - just set the
  938. <code>srcdir</code> and <code>destdir</code> attributes to
  939. the actual directory the source
  940. files live in and the directory the class files should go into,
  941. respectively.</p>
  942. <p class="faq">
  943. <a name="defaultexcludes"></a>
  944. I've used a <code>&lt;delete&gt;</code> task to
  945. delete unwanted SourceSafe control files (CVS files, editor
  946. backup files, etc.), but it doesn't seem to work; the files
  947. never get deleted. What's wrong?
  948. </p>
  949. <p>This is probably happening because, by default, Ant excludes
  950. SourceSafe control files (<code>vssver.scc</code>) and certain other
  951. files from FileSets.</p>
  952. <p>Here's what you probably did:</p>
  953. <pre class="code">
  954. &lt;delete&gt;
  955. &lt;fileset dir=&quot;${build.src}&quot; includes=&quot;**/vssver.scc&quot;/&gt;
  956. &lt;/delete&gt;
  957. </pre>
  958. <p>You need to switch off the default exclusions,
  959. and it will work:</p>
  960. <pre class="code">
  961. &lt;delete&gt;
  962. &lt;fileset dir=&quot;${build.src}&quot; includes=&quot;**/vssver.scc&quot;
  963. defaultexcludes=&quot;no&quot;/&gt;
  964. &lt;/delete&gt;
  965. </pre>
  966. <p>For a complete listing of the patterns that are excluded
  967. by default, see <a href="manual/dirtasks.html#defaultexcludes">the user
  968. manual</a>.</p>
  969. <p class="faq">
  970. <a name="stop-dependency"></a>
  971. I have a target I want to skip if a property is set,
  972. so I have <code>unless="property"</code> as an attribute
  973. of the target, but all the targets this target
  974. depends on are still executed. Why?
  975. </p>
  976. <p>The list of dependencies is generated by Ant before any of the
  977. targets are run. This allows dependent targets, such as an
  978. <code>init</code> target, to set properties that can control the
  979. execution of the targets higher in the dependency graph. This
  980. is a good thing.</p>
  981. <p>However, when your dependencies break down the
  982. higher-level task
  983. into several smaller steps, this behaviour becomes
  984. counter-intuitive. There are a couple of solutions available:
  985. </p>
  986. <ol>
  987. <li>Put the same condition on each of the dependent targets.</li>
  988. <li>Execute the steps using <code>&lt;antcall&gt;</code>,
  989. instead of specifying them inside the <code>depends</code>
  990. attribute.</li>
  991. </ol>
  992. <p class="faq">
  993. <a name="include-order"></a>
  994. In my <code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>, I've put in an
  995. <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> of all files followed by an
  996. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> of just the files I want, but it
  997. isn't giving me any files at all. What's wrong?
  998. </p>
  999. <p>The order of the <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> and
  1000. <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> tags within a <code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>
  1001. is ignored when the FileSet is created. Instead, all of the
  1002. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> elements are processed together,
  1003. followed by all of the <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code>
  1004. elements. This means that the <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code>
  1005. elements only apply to the file list produced by the
  1006. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> elements.</p>
  1007. <p>To get the files you want, focus on just the
  1008. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> patterns that would be necessary
  1009. to get them. If you find you need to trim the list that the
  1010. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> elements produce, then use
  1011. <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> elements.</p>
  1012. <p class="faq">
  1013. <a name="properties-not-trimmed"></a>
  1014. <code>ant</code> failed to build my program via javac
  1015. even when I put the needed jars in an external
  1016. <code>build.properties</code> file and reference them by
  1017. <code>pathelement</code> or <code>classpath refid</code>.
  1018. </p>
  1019. <p>When <code>ant</code> loads properties from an external
  1020. file it dosn't touch the value of properties, trailing blanks
  1021. will not be trimmed for example.</p>
  1022. <p>If the value represents a file path, like a jar needed to
  1023. compile, the task which requires the value, javac for example
  1024. would fail to compile since it can't find the file due to
  1025. trailing spaces.</p>
  1026. <p class="faq">
  1027. <a name="winzip-lies"></a>
  1028. Ant creates WAR files with a lower-case
  1029. <code>web-inf</code> or JAR files with a lower-case
  1030. <code>meta-inf</code> directory.
  1031. </p>
  1032. <p>No it doesn't.</p>
  1033. <p>You may have seen these lower-case directory names in
  1034. WinZIP, but WinZIP is trying to be helpful (and fails). If
  1035. WinZIP encounters a filename that is all upper-case, it
  1036. assumes it has come from an old DOS box and changes the case to
  1037. all lower-case for you.</p>
  1038. <p>If you extract (or just check) the archive with jar, you
  1039. will see that the names have the correct case.</p>
  1040. <p>With WinZIP (version 8.1 at least), this can be corrected in the
  1041. configuration. In the Options/Configuration menu, in the View tab, General
  1042. section, check the "Allow all upper case files names" box. The META-INF and
  1043. WEB-INF will look correct.</p>
  1044. <p class="faq">
  1045. <a name="integration"></a>
  1046. Is Ant supported by my IDE/Editor?
  1047. </p>
  1048. <p>See the <a href="external.html#IDE and Editor Integration">section
  1049. on IDE integration</a> on our External Tools and Tasks page.</p>
  1050. <p class="faq">
  1051. <a name="emacs-mode"></a>
  1052. Why doesn't (X)Emacs/vi/MacOS X's project builder
  1053. correctly parse the error messages generated by Ant?
  1054. </p>
  1055. <p>Ant adds a "banner" with the name of the current
  1056. task in front of all logging messages - and there are no built-in
  1057. regular expressions in your editor that would account for
  1058. this.</p>
  1059. <p>You can disable this banner by invoking Ant with the
  1060. <code>-emacs</code> switch. To make Ant autodetect
  1061. Emacs' compile mode, put this into your
  1062. <code>.antrc</code> (contributed by Ville Skytt�).</p>
  1063. <pre class="code">
  1064. # Detect (X)Emacs compile mode
  1065. if [ &quot;$EMACS&quot; = &quot;t&quot; ] ; then
  1066. ANT_ARGS=&quot;$ANT_ARGS -emacs&quot;
  1067. ANT_OPTS=&quot;$ANT_OPTS -Dbuild.compiler.emacs=true&quot;
  1068. fi
  1069. </pre>
  1070. <p>Alternatively, you can add the following snippet to your
  1071. <code>.emacs</code> to make Emacs understand Ant's
  1072. output.</p>
  1073. <pre class="code">
  1074. (require 'compile)
  1075. (setq compilation-error-regexp-alist
  1076. (append (list
  1077. ;; works for jikes
  1078. '(&quot;^\\s-*\\[[^]]*\\]\\s-*\\(.+\\):\\([0-9]+\\):\\([0-9]+\\):[0-9]+:[0-9]+:&quot; 1 2 3)
  1079. ;; works for javac
  1080. '(&quot;^\\s-*\\[[^]]*\\]\\s-*\\(.+\\):\\([0-9]+\\):&quot; 1 2))
  1081. compilation-error-regexp-alist))
  1082. </pre>
  1083. <p>Yet another alternative that preserves most of Ant's
  1084. formatting is to pipe Ant's output through the following Perl
  1085. script by Dirk-Willem van Gulik:</p>
  1086. <pre class="code">
  1087. #!/usr/bin/perl
  1088. #
  1089. # May 2001 dirkx@apache.org - remove any
  1090. # [foo] lines from the output; keeping
  1091. # spacing more or less there.
  1092. #
  1093. $|=1;
  1094. while(&lt;STDIN&gt;) {
  1095. if (s/^(\s+)\[(\w+)\]//) {
  1096. if ($2 ne $last) {
  1097. print &quot;$1\[$2\]&quot;;
  1098. $s = ' ' x length($2);
  1099. } else {
  1100. print &quot;$1 $s &quot;;
  1101. };
  1102. $last = $2;
  1103. };
  1104. print;
  1105. };
  1106. </pre>
  1107. <p class="faq">
  1108. <a name="dtd"></a>
  1109. Is there a DTD that I can use to validate my build
  1110. files?
  1111. </p>
  1112. <p>An incomplete DTD can be created by the
  1113. <code>&lt;antstructure&gt;</code> task - but this one
  1114. has a few problems:</p>
  1115. <ul>
  1116. <li>It doesn't know about required attributes. Only
  1117. manual tweaking of this file can help here.</li>
  1118. <li>It is not complete - if you add new tasks via
  1119. <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> it won't know about it. See
  1120. <a href="http://www.sdv.fr/pages/casa/html/ant-dtd.en.html">this
  1121. page</a> by Michel Casabianca for a solution to this
  1122. problem. Note that the DTD you can download at this page
  1123. is based on Ant 0.3.1.</li>
  1124. <li>It may even be an invalid DTD. As Ant allows tasks
  1125. writers to define arbitrary elements, name collisions will
  1126. happen quite frequently - if your version of Ant contains
  1127. the optional <code>&lt;test&gt;</code> and
  1128. <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> tasks, there are two XML
  1129. elements named <code>test</code> (the task and the nested child
  1130. element of <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code>) with different attribute
  1131. lists. This problem cannot be solved; DTDs don't give a
  1132. syntax rich enough to support this.</li>
  1133. </ul>
  1134. <p class="faq">
  1135. <a name="xml-entity-include"></a>
  1136. How do I include an XML snippet in my build file?
  1137. </p>
  1138. <p>You can use XML's way of including external files and let
  1139. the parser do the job for Ant:</p>
  1140. <pre class="code">
  1141. &lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot;?&gt;
  1142. &lt;!DOCTYPE project [
  1143. &lt;!ENTITY common SYSTEM &quot;file:./common.xml&quot;&gt;
  1144. ]&gt;
  1145. &lt;project name=&quot;test&quot; default=&quot;test&quot; basedir=&quot;.&quot;&gt;
  1146. &lt;target name=&quot;setup&quot;&gt;
  1147. ...
  1148. &lt;/target&gt;
  1149. &amp;common;
  1150. ...
  1151. &lt;/project&gt;
  1152. </pre>
  1153. <p>will literally include the contents of <code>common.xml</code> where
  1154. you've placed the <code>&amp;common;</code> entity.</p>
  1155. <p>In combination with a DTD, this would look like this:</p>
  1156. <pre class="code">
  1157. &lt;!DOCTYPE project PUBLIC &quot;-//ANT//DTD project//EN&quot; &quot;file:./ant.dtd&quot; [
  1158. &lt;!ENTITY include SYSTEM &quot;file:./header.xml&quot;&gt;
  1159. ]&gt;
  1160. </pre>
  1161. <p>Starting with Ant 1.6, there is a new
  1162. <code>&lt;import&gt;</code> task that can (also) be used to
  1163. include build file fragments. Unlike the snippets used with
  1164. entity includes, the referenced files have to be complete Ant
  1165. build files, though.</p>
  1166. <p>The example above would become:</p>
  1167. <pre class="code">
  1168. &lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot;?&gt;
  1169. &lt;project name=&quot;test&quot; default=&quot;test&quot; basedir=&quot;.&quot;&gt;
  1170. &lt;target name=&quot;setup&quot;&gt;
  1171. ...
  1172. &lt;/target&gt;
  1173. &lt;import file=&quot;./common.xml&quot;/&gt;
  1174. ...
  1175. &lt;/project&gt;
  1176. </pre>
  1177. <p>Unlike entity includes, <code>&lt;import&gt;</code> will
  1178. let you use Ant properties in the file name.</p>
  1179. <p class="faq">
  1180. <a name="mail-logger"></a>
  1181. How do I send an email with the result of my build
  1182. process?
  1183. </p>
  1184. <p>If you are using a nightly build of Ant 1.5 after
  1185. 2001-12-14, you can use the built-in MailLogger:</p>
  1186. <pre class="code">
  1187. ant -logger org.apache.tools.ant.listener.MailLogger
  1188. </pre>
  1189. <p>See the <a href="http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs/~checkout~/ant/docs/manual/listeners.html?content-type=text/html">Listeners
  1190. &amp; Loggers</a> documentation for details on the properties
  1191. required.</p>
  1192. <p>For older versions of Ant, you can use a custom
  1193. BuildListener that sends out an email
  1194. in the buildFinished() method. Will Glozer
  1195. &lt;will.glozer@jda.com&gt; has written such a listener based
  1196. on <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/javamail/">JavaMail</a>.
  1197. The source is:</p>
  1198. <pre class="code">
  1199. import java.io.*;
  1200. import java.util.*;
  1201. import javax.mail.*;
  1202. import javax.mail.internet.*;
  1203. import org.apache.tools.ant.*;
  1204. /**
  1205. * A simple listener that waits for a build to finish and sends an email
  1206. * of the results. The settings are stored in &quot;monitor.properties&quot; and
  1207. * are fairly self explanatory.
  1208. *
  1209. * @author Will Glozer
  1210. * @version 1.05a 09/06/2000
  1211. */
  1212. public class BuildMonitor implements BuildListener {
  1213. protected Properties props;
  1214. /**
  1215. * Create a new BuildMonitor.
  1216. */
  1217. public BuildMonitor() throws Exception {
  1218. props = new Properties();
  1219. InputStream is = getClass().getResourceAsStream(&quot;monitor.properties&quot;);
  1220. props.load(is);
  1221. is.close();
  1222. }
  1223. public void buildStarted(BuildEvent e) {
  1224. }
  1225. /**
  1226. * Determine the status of the build and the actions to follow, now that
  1227. * the build has completed.
  1228. *
  1229. * @param e Event describing the build status.
  1230. */
  1231. public void buildFinished(BuildEvent e) {
  1232. Throwable th = e.getException();
  1233. String status = (th != null) ? &quot;failed&quot; : &quot;succeeded&quot;;
  1234. try {
  1235. String key = &quot;build.&quot; + status;
  1236. if (props.getProperty(key + &quot;.notify&quot;).equalsIgnoreCase(&quot;false&quot;)) {
  1237. return;
  1238. }
  1239. Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, null);
  1240. MimeMessage message = new MimeMessage(session);
  1241. message.addRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO, parseAddresses(
  1242. props.getProperty(key + &quot;.email.to&quot;)));
  1243. message.setSubject(props.getProperty(key + &quot;.email.subject&quot;));
  1244. BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(
  1245. props.getProperty(&quot;build.log&quot;)));
  1246. StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
  1247. String line = br.readLine();
  1248. while (line != null) {
  1249. sw.write(line);
  1250. sw.write(&quot;\n&quot;);
  1251. line = br.readLine();
  1252. }
  1253. br.close();
  1254. message.setText(sw.toString(), &quot;UTF-8&quot;);
  1255. sw.close();
  1256. Transport transport = session.getTransport();
  1257. transport.connect();
  1258. transport.send(message);
  1259. transport.close();
  1260. } catch (Exception ex) {
  1261. System.out.println(&quot;BuildMonitor failed to send email!&quot;);
  1262. ex.printStackTrace();
  1263. }
  1264. }
  1265. /**
  1266. * Parse a comma separated list of internet email addresses.
  1267. *
  1268. * @param s The list of addresses.
  1269. * @return Array of Addresses.
  1270. */
  1271. protected Address[] parseAddresses(String s) throws Exception {
  1272. StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(s, &quot;,&quot;);
  1273. Address[] addrs = new Address[st.countTokens()];
  1274. for (int i = 0; i &lt; addrs.length; i++) {
  1275. addrs[i] = new InternetAddress(st.nextToken());
  1276. }
  1277. return addrs;
  1278. }
  1279. public void messageLogged(BuildEvent e) {
  1280. }
  1281. public void targetStarted(BuildEvent e) {
  1282. }
  1283. public void targetFinished(BuildEvent e) {
  1284. }
  1285. public void taskStarted(BuildEvent e) {
  1286. }
  1287. public void taskFinished(BuildEvent e) {
  1288. }
  1289. }
  1290. </pre>
  1291. <p>With a <code>monitor.properties</code> like this:</p>
  1292. <pre class="code">
  1293. # configuration for build monitor
  1294. mail.transport.protocol=smtp
  1295. mail.smtp.host=&lt;host&gt;
  1296. mail.from=Will Glozer &lt;will.glozer@jda.com&gt;
  1297. build.log=build.log
  1298. build.failed.notify=true
  1299. build.failed.email.to=will.glozer@jda.com
  1300. build.failed.email.subject=Nightly build failed!
  1301. build.succeeded.notify=true
  1302. build.succeeded.email.to=will.glozer@jda.com
  1303. build.succeeded.email.subject=Nightly build succeeded!
  1304. </pre>
  1305. <p><code>monitor.properties</code> should be placed right next
  1306. to your compiled <code>BuildMonitor.class</code>. To use it,
  1307. invoke Ant like:</p>
  1308. <pre class="code">
  1309. ant -listener BuildMonitor -logfile build.log
  1310. </pre>
  1311. <p>Make sure that <code>mail.jar</code> from JavaMail and
  1312. <code>activation.jar</code> from the
  1313. <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/javabeans/glasgow/jaf.html">Java
  1314. Beans Activation Framework</a> are in your <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
  1315. <p class="faq">
  1316. <a name="listener-properties"></a>
  1317. How do I get at the properties that Ant was running
  1318. with from inside BuildListener?
  1319. </p>
  1320. <p>You can get at a hashtable with all the properties that Ant
  1321. has been using through the BuildEvent parameter. For
  1322. example:</p>
  1323. <pre class="code">
  1324. public void buildFinished(BuildEvent e) {
  1325. Hashtable table = e.getProject().getProperties();
  1326. String buildpath = (String)table.get(&quot;build.path&quot;);
  1327. ...
  1328. }
  1329. </pre>
  1330. <p>This is more accurate than just reading the same property
  1331. files that your project does, since it will give the correct
  1332. results for properties that were specified on the Ant command line.</p>
  1333. <p class="faq">
  1334. <a name="remove-cr"></a>
  1335. &lt;chmod&gt; or &lt;exec&gt; doesn't work in Ant
  1336. 1.3 on Unix
  1337. </p>
  1338. <p>The <code>antRun</code> script in <code>ANT_HOME/bin</code>
  1339. has DOS instead of Unix line endings; you must remove the
  1340. carriage-return characters from this file. This can be done by
  1341. using Ant's <code>&lt;fixcrlf&gt;</code> task
  1342. or something like:</p>
  1343. <pre class="code">
  1344. tr -d '\r' &lt; $ANT_HOME/bin/antRun &gt; /tmp/foo
  1345. mv /tmp/foo $ANT_HOME/bin/antRun
  1346. </pre>
  1347. <p class="faq">
  1348. <a name="javadoc-cannot-execute"></a>
  1349. JavaDoc failed: java.io.IOException: javadoc: cannot execute
  1350. </p>
  1351. <p>There is a bug in the Solaris reference implementation of
  1352. 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>).
  1353. This also appears to be true under Linux. Moving the JDK to
  1354. the front of the PATH fixes the problem.</p>
  1355. <p class="faq">
  1356. <a name="delegating-classloader"></a>
  1357. &lt;style&gt; or &lt;junit&gt; ignores my
  1358. &lt;classpath&gt;
  1359. </p>
  1360. <p>These tasks don't ignore your classpath setting, you
  1361. are facing a common problem with delegating classloaders.</p>
  1362. <p>First of all let's state that Ant adds all
  1363. <code>.jar</code> files from <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code> to
  1364. <code>CLASSPATH</code>, therefore "in
  1365. <code>CLASSPATH</code>" shall mean "either in your
  1366. <code>CLASSPATH</code> environment variable or
  1367. <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code>" for the rest of this
  1368. answer.</p>
  1369. <p>Technically the sentence above isn't true for Ant 1.6
  1370. and later anymore, but the result is the same. For the sake
  1371. of this discussion, <code>CLASSPATH</code> and
  1372. <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code> are identical.</p>
  1373. <p>This question collects a common type of problem: A task
  1374. needs an external library and it has a nested classpath
  1375. element so that you can point it to this external library, but
  1376. that doesn't work unless you put the external library into the
  1377. <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
  1378. <p>The root of the problem is that the class that needs the
  1379. external library is on the <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
  1380. <p>When you specify a nested <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> in
  1381. Ant, Ant creates a new class loader that uses the path you
  1382. have specified. It then tries to load additional classes from
  1383. this classloader.</p>
  1384. <p>In most cases - for example the two cases above - Ant
  1385. doesn't load the external library directly, it is the loaded
  1386. class that does so.</p>
  1387. <p>In the case of <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> it is the task
  1388. implementation itself and in the case of
  1389. <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> it is the implementation of the
  1390. <code>org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.XSLTLiaison</code>
  1391. class.</p>
  1392. <p>Ant's class loader implementation uses Java's
  1393. 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>
  1394. the paragraph</p>
  1395. <blockquote>The <code>ClassLoader</code> class uses a
  1396. delegation model to search for classes and resources. Each
  1397. instance of <code>ClassLoader</code> has an associated parent
  1398. class loader. When called upon to find a class or resource, a
  1399. <code>ClassLoader</code> instance will delegate the search for
  1400. the class or resource to its parent class loader before
  1401. attempting to find the class or resource itself. The virtual
  1402. machine's built-in class loader, called the bootstrap
  1403. class loader, does not itself have a parent but may serve as
  1404. the parent of a <code>ClassLoader</code>
  1405. instance.</blockquote>
  1406. <p>This means, Ant's class loader will consult the
  1407. bootstrap class loader first, which tries to load classes from
  1408. <code>CLASSPATH</code>. The bootstrap class loader
  1409. doesn't know anything about Ant's class loader or
  1410. even the path you have specified.</p>
  1411. <p>If the bootstrap class loader can load the class Ant has
  1412. asked it to load, this class will try to load the external
  1413. library from <code>CLASSPATH</code> as well - it doesn't
  1414. know anything else - and will not find it unless the library
  1415. is in <code>CLASSPATH</code> as well.</p>
  1416. <p>To solve this, you have two major options:</p>
  1417. <ol>
  1418. <li>put all external libraries you need in
  1419. <code>CLASSPATH</code> as well this is not what you want,
  1420. otherwise you wouldn't have found this FAQ entry.</li>
  1421. <li>remove the class that loads the external library from
  1422. the <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</li>
  1423. </ol>
  1424. <p><strong>Using The Second Option with Ant 1.5.4 and
  1425. Earlier:</strong></p>
  1426. <p>The easiest way to do this is to remove
  1427. <code>optional.jar</code> from <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code>. If
  1428. you do so, you will have to <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> all
  1429. optional tasks and use nested <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code>
  1430. elements in the <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> tasks that point
  1431. to the new location of <code>optional.jar</code>. Also,
  1432. don't forget to add the new location of
  1433. <code>optional.jar</code> to the
  1434. <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> of your
  1435. <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> or <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code>
  1436. task.</p>
  1437. <p>If you want to avoid to <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> all
  1438. optional tasks you need, the only other option is to remove
  1439. the classes that should not be loaded via the bootstrap class
  1440. loader from <code>optional.jar</code> and put them into a
  1441. separate archive. Add this separate archive to the
  1442. <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> of your
  1443. <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> or <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> task
  1444. - and make sure the separate archive is not in
  1445. <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
  1446. <p>In the case of <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> you'd have
  1447. to remove all classes that are in the
  1448. <code>org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/junit</code>
  1449. directory, in the <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> case it is one of
  1450. the <code>*Liaison</code> classes in
  1451. <code>org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional</code>.</p>
  1452. <p><strong>Using The Second Option with Ant 1.6 and
  1453. later:</strong></p>
  1454. <p>In Ant 1.6 <code>optional.jar</code> has been split into
  1455. multiple jars, each one containing classes with the same
  1456. dependencies on external libraries. You can move the
  1457. "offending" jar out of ANT_HOME/lib. For the
  1458. <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> task it would be
  1459. <code>ant-junit.jar</code> and for <code>&lt;style&gt;</code>
  1460. it would be <code>ant-trax.jar</code>,
  1461. <code>ant-xalan1.jar</code> or <code>ant-xslp.jar</code> -
  1462. depending on the processor you use.</p>
  1463. <p>If you use the option to break up <code>optional.jar</code>
  1464. for <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> or remove
  1465. <code>ant-junit.jar</code>, you still have to use a
  1466. <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> with a nested
  1467. <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> to define the junit task.</p>
  1468. <p class="faq">
  1469. <a name="winxp-jdk14-ant14"></a>
  1470. When running Ant 1.4 on Windows XP and JDK 1.4, I get
  1471. various errors when trying to <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code>, fork
  1472. <code>&lt;java&gt;</code> or access environment
  1473. variables.
  1474. </p>
  1475. <p>Ant &lt; 1.5 doesn't recognize Windows XP as a flavor
  1476. of Windows that runs <code>CMD.EXE</code> instead of
  1477. <code>COMMAND.COM</code>. JDK 1.3 will tell Ant that Windows
  1478. XP is Windows 2000 so the problem doesn't show up
  1479. there.</p>
  1480. <p>Apart from upgrading to Ant 1.5 or better, setting the
  1481. environment variable <code>ANT_OPTS</code> to
  1482. <code>-Dos.name=Windows_NT</code> prior to invoking Ant has
  1483. been confirmed as a workaround.</p>
  1484. <p class="faq">
  1485. <a name="1.5-cygwin-sh"></a>
  1486. The <code>ant</code> wrapper script of Ant 1.5 fails
  1487. for Cygwin if <code>ANT_HOME</code> is set to a Windows style
  1488. path.
  1489. </p>
  1490. <p>This problem has been reported only hours after Ant 1.5 has
  1491. been released, see <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10664">Bug
  1492. 10664</a> and all its duplicates.</p>
  1493. <p>A fixed version of the wrapper script can be found <a href="http://ant.apache.org/old-releases/v1.5/errata/">here</a>.
  1494. Simply replace your script with this version.</p>
  1495. <p class="faq">
  1496. <a name="1.5.2-zip-broken"></a>
  1497. <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> is broken in Ant 1.5.2.
  1498. </p>
  1499. <p>Yes, it is.</p>
  1500. <p>The problem reported by most people - see <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17648">Bug
  1501. 17648</a> and all its duplicates - is that Ant creates
  1502. archives that a partially unreadable by WinZIP. Luckily
  1503. <code>jar</code> deals with the archives and so the generated
  1504. jars/wars/ears will most likely work for you anyway.</p>
  1505. <p>There are additional problems, see bugs <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17780">Bug
  1506. 17780</a>, <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17871">Bug
  1507. 17871</a> and <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=18403">Bug
  1508. 18403</a>. All of them are supposed to be fixed with Ant
  1509. 1.5.3 (and only 18403 should exist in 1.5.3beta1).</p>
  1510. <p class="faq">
  1511. <a name="unknownelement.taskcontainer"></a>
  1512. Why do my custom task containers see Unknown Elements in Ant 1.6
  1513. - they worked in Ant 1.5?
  1514. </p>
  1515. <p>
  1516. The objects added in TaskContainer.addTask(Task task)
  1517. have changed from Tasks to UnknownElements.
  1518. </p>
  1519. <p>
  1520. There was a number of valid reasons for this change. But the backward
  1521. compatibility problems were not noticed until after Ant 1.6.0 was
  1522. released.
  1523. </p>
  1524. <p>
  1525. Your container class will need to be modified to check if the Task
  1526. is an UnknownElement and call perform on it to
  1527. convert it to a Task and to execute it.
  1528. (see apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.Sequential)
  1529. </p>
  1530. <p>
  1531. If you want to do more processing on the task,
  1532. you need to use the techniques in apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.Antlib#execute()
  1533. This does make use of one 1.6 method call (UE#getRealObject()),
  1534. you need to use UE#getTask() instead - this will
  1535. return null for non tasks (types like fileset id=x).
  1536. </p>
  1537. <p>
  1538. So.. iterate over the tasks, if they are UEs, convert them to
  1539. tasks, using UE#maybeConfigure and UE#getTask()
  1540. </p>
  1541. <pre class="code">
  1542. for (Iterator i = tasks.iterator(); i.hasNext();) {
  1543. Task t = (Task) i.next();
  1544. if (t instanceof UnknownElement) {
  1545. ((UnknownElement) t).maybeConfigure();
  1546. t = ((UnknownElement) t).getTask();
  1547. if (t == null) {
  1548. continue;
  1549. }
  1550. }
  1551. // .... original Custom code
  1552. }
  1553. </pre>
  1554. <p>
  1555. This approach should work for ant1.5 and ant1.6.
  1556. </p>
  1557. <p class="faq">
  1558. <a name="java.exception.stacktrace"></a>
  1559. The program I run via &lt;java&gt; throws an exception but I
  1560. can't seem to get the full stack trace.
  1561. </p>
  1562. <p>This is a know bug that has been fixed after the release of
  1563. Ant 1.6.1.</p>
  1564. <p>As a workaround, run your &lt;java&gt; task with
  1565. <code>fork="true"</code> and Ant will display the full
  1566. trace.</p>
  1567. <p class="faq">
  1568. <a name="junit-no-runtime-xml"></a>
  1569. Using format="xml", &lt;junit&gt; fails with a
  1570. <code>NoClassDefFoundError</code> if forked.
  1571. </p>
  1572. <p>The XML formatter needs the <a href="http://www.w3.org/DOM/">DOM classes</a> to work. If you
  1573. are using JDK 1.4 or later they are included with your Java
  1574. Runtime and this problem won't occur. If you are running JDK
  1575. 1.3 or earlier, the DOM classes have to be on your
  1576. &lt;junit&gt; task's &lt;classpath&gt;.</p>
  1577. <p>Prior to Ant 1.6.0 Ant would include the DOM classes from
  1578. the XML parser that is used by Ant itself if you set the
  1579. includeAntRuntime attribute to true (the default). With Ant
  1580. 1.6.0 this has been changed as this behavior made it
  1581. impossible to use a different XML parser in your tests.</p>
  1582. <p>This means that you have to take care of the DOM classes
  1583. explicitly starting with Ant 1.6.0. If you don't need to set
  1584. up a different XML parser for your tests, the easiest solution
  1585. is to add</p>
  1586. <pre class="code">
  1587. &lt;pathelement path=&quot;${ant.home}/lib/xml-apis.jar:${ant.home}/lib/xercesImpl.jar&quot;/&gt;
  1588. </pre>
  1589. <p>to your task's &lt;classpath&gt;.</p>
  1590. </div>
  1591. </div>
  1592. <p class="copyright">
  1593. Copyright &copy; 2000-2004&nbsp;The Apache Software Foundation. All rights reserved.
  1594. <script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript"><!--
  1595. document.write(" - "+"Last Published: " + document.lastModified);
  1596. // -->
  1597. </script>
  1598. </p>
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