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<title>ANTLR Task</title>
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<h2><a name="antlr">ANTLR</a></h2>
<h3>Description</h3>
<p>
Invokes the <a HREF="http://www.antlr.org/" target="_top">ANTLR</a> Translator generator
on a grammar file.
</p>
<p>
To use the ANTLR task, set the <i>target</i> attribute to the name of the
grammar file to process. Optionally, you can also set the
<i>outputdirectory</i> to write the generated file to a specific directory.
Otherwise ANTLR writes the generated files to the directory containing
the grammar file.
</p>
<p>
This task only invokes ANTLR if the grammar file is newer than the generated
files.
</p>
<p>
<i>
To successfully run ANTLR, your best option is probably to build the whole
jar with the provided script <b>mkalljar</b> and drop the resulting jar (about 300KB)
into ${ant.home}/lib. Dropping the default jar (70KB) is probably not enough
for most needs and your only option will be to add ANTLR home directory
to your classpath as described in ANTLR <tt>install.html</tt> document.
</i>
</p>
<h3>Parameters</h3>
<table border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td valign="top"><b>Attribute</b></td>
<td valign="top"><b>Description</b></td>
<td align="center" valign="top"><b>Required</b></td>
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<tr>
<td valign="top">target</td>
<td valign="top">The grammar file to process.</td>
<td valign="top" align="center">Yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">outputdirectory</td>
<td valign="top">
The directory to write the generated files to. If not set, the files
are written to the directory containing the grammar file.
</td>
<td valign="top" align="center">No</td>
</tr>
<!--tr>
<td valign="top">fork</td>
<td valign="top">Run ANTLR in a separate VM.</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">No, default is "off"</td>
</tr-->
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<td valign="top">dir</td>
<td valign="top">The directory to invoke the VM in. <!--(ignored if
fork is disabled)--></td>
<td align="center" valign="top">No</td>
</tr>
</table>
<h3><a name="nested">Nested Elements</a></h3>
<p><code>ANTLR</code> supports a nested <code><classpath></code>
element, that represents a <a href="../using.html#path">PATH like
structure</a>. It is given as a convenience if you have to specify
the original ANTLR directory. In most cases, dropping the appropriate
ANTLR jar in the normal Ant lib repository will be enough.</p>
<h4>jvmarg</h4>
<p><!--If fork is enabled, -->Additional parameters may be passed to the new
VM via nested <code><jvmarg></code> attributes, for example:</p>
<pre>
<antlr target=...>
<jvmarg value="-Djava.compiler=NONE"/>
...
</antlr>
</pre>
<p>would run ANTLR in a VM without JIT.</p>
<p><code><jvmarg></code> allows all attributes described in <a
href="../using.html#arg">Command line arguments</a>.</p>
<h3>Example</h3>
<blockquote><pre>
<antlr
target="etc/java.g"
outputdirectory="build/src"
/>
</pre></blockquote>
<p>
This invokes ANTLR on grammar file etc/java.g, writing the generated
files to build/src.
</p>
<hr>
<p align="center">Copyright © 2001 Apache Software Foundation. All rights
Reserved.</p>
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