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README file for the jakarta-ant workspace |
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----------------------------------------------------------------- |
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$Id$ |
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================================================================= |
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This is the workspace for Ant, a Java based build tool. |
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A N T |
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TODO List: |
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What is it? |
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----------- |
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Ant is a Java based build tool. In theory it is kind of like "make" |
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without makes wrinkles and with the full portability of pure java code. |
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* Improve documentation of how to use ant, how tasks are |
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constructed, etc. |
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Why? |
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---- |
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Why another build tool when there is already make, gnumake, nmake, jam, |
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and others? Because all of those tools have limitations that its original |
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author couldn't live with when developing software across multiple platforms. |
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Make-like tools are inherently shell based. They evaluate a set of |
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dependencies and then execute commands not unlike what you would issue on a |
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shell. This means that you can easily extend these tools by using or writing |
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any program for the OS that you are working on. However, this also means that |
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you limit yourself to the OS, or at least the OS type such as Unix, that you |
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are working on. |
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Makefiles are inherently evil as well. Anybody who has worked on them for any |
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time has run into the dreaded tab problem. "Is my command not executing |
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because I have a space in front of my tab!!!" said the original author of Ant |
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way too many times. Tools like Jam took care of this to a great degree, but |
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still use yet another format to use and remember. |
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Ant is different. Instead a model where it is extended with shell based |
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commands, it is extended using Java classes. Instead of writing shell |
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commands, the configuration files are XML based calling out a target tree |
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where various tasks get executed. Each task is run by an object which |
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implements a particular Task interface. |
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Granted, this removes some of the expressive power that is inherent by being |
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able to construct a shell command such as `find . -name foo -exec rm {}` but |
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it gives you the ability to be cross platform. To work anywhere and |
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everywhere. And hey, if you really need to execute a shell command, Ant has |
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an exec rule that allows different commands to be executed based on the OS |
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that it is executing on. |
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* Improve error reporting on BuildException catches. Error should |
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state which task and which target was active at the time the |
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BuildException was popped. |
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The Latest Version |
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------------------ |
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* Improve error reporting on XML parse. Currently if the build.xml |
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file is malformed we get some sort of odd SAX exception that could |
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be better put. |
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Details of the latest version can be found on the Apache Jakarta |
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Project web site <http://jakarta.apache.org/>. |
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* Provide an AbstractFileCompareTask class with prebuilt "srcfile" |
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and "destfile" setter methods and whose execute method calls a |
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"updateNeeded" method. |
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* Transform task -- XSLT |
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Documentation |
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------------- |
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* Output logs in XML -- this would be a global option of the project |
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(log location, verboseness, etc) |
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Documentation is available in HTML format, in the docs/ directory. |
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* Javac improvements -- support the "modern" 1.3 compiler |
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* Investigate some sort of command line "execute an instance of a |
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task with these parameters" entry point. Maybe a |
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`org.apache.ant.TaskMain task org.foo.BarTask attrib1=foo |
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attrib2=bar` type entry point? |
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Licensing |
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--------- |
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* Investigate some sort of "touch" functionality. Not sure how this |
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could be done in a portable way -- maybe append 0 bytes to a file |
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as a quick hack? |
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This software is licensed under the terms you may find in the file |
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named "LICENSE" in this directory. |
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* GUI front end -- examine tasks, add task properties, etc. Also, |
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one button push build of a particular target. |
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* Test harness. All software projects should have an automatable |
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test suite. Ant is no exception to this rule. |
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Thanks for using Ant. |
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The Apache Jakarta Project |
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<http://jakarta.apache.org/> |
Stefano Mazzocchi