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  <title>Tutorial: Hello World with Apache Ant</title>
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<h1>Tutorial: Hello World with Apache Ant</h1>

<p>This document provides a step by step tutorial for starting Java programming with Apache Ant. It
does <strong>not</strong> contain deeper knowledge about Java or Ant. This tutorial has the goal to let you see, how to
do the easiest steps in Ant.</p>

<h2>Content</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="#prepare">Preparing the project</a></li>
<li><a href="#four-steps">Four steps to a running application</a></li>
<li><a href="#enhance">Enhance the build file</a></li>
<li><a href="#ext-libs">Using external libraries</a></li>
<li><a href="#resources">Resources</a></li>
</ul>

<h2 id="prepare">Preparing the project</h2>
<p>We want to separate the source from the generated files, so our Java source files will be in <samp>src</samp>
folder. All generated files should be under <samp>build</samp>, and there split into several subdirectories for the
individual steps: <samp>classes</samp> for our compiled files and <samp>jar</samp> for our own JAR-file.</p>

<p>We have to create only the <samp>src</samp> directory. (Because I am working on Windows, here is the Windows
syntax&mdash;translate to your shell):</p>

<pre class="input">md src</pre>

<p>The following simple Java class just prints a fixed message out to STDOUT, so just write this code
into <samp>src\oata\HelloWorld.java</samp>.</p>

<pre>
package oata;

public class HelloWorld {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello World");
    }
}</pre>

<p>Now just try to compile and run that:</p>
<pre class="input">
md build\classes
javac -sourcepath src -d build\classes src\oata\HelloWorld.java
java -cp build\classes oata.HelloWorld</pre>
which will result in
<pre class="output">Hello World</pre>

<p>Creating a jar-file is not very difficult. But creating a <em>startable</em> jar-file needs more steps: create a
manifest-file containing the start class, creating the target directory and archiving the files.</p>
<pre class="input">
echo Main-Class: oata.HelloWorld&gt;myManifest
md build\jar
jar cfm build\jar\HelloWorld.jar myManifest -C build\classes .
java -jar build\jar\HelloWorld.jar</pre>

<p><strong>Note</strong>: Do not have blanks around the &gt;-sign in the <kbd>echo Main-Class</kbd> instruction because
it would falsify it!</p>

<h2 id="four-steps">Four steps to a running application</h2>
<p>After finishing the Java-only step we have to think about our build process. We <em>have</em> to compile our code,
otherwise we couldn't start the program. Oh&mdash;<q>start</q>&mdash;yes, we could provide a target for
that. We <em>should</em> package our application.  Now it's only one class&mdash;but if you want to provide a download,
no one would download several hundreds files ...  (think about a complex Swing GUI&mdash;so let us create a jar file. A
startable jar file would be nice ... And it's a good practise to have a <q>clean</q> target, which deletes all the
generated stuff. Many failures could be solved just by a "clean build".</p>

<p>By default Ant uses <samp>build.xml</samp> as the name for a buildfile, so our <samp>.\build.xml</samp> would be:</p>
<pre>
&lt;project&gt;

    &lt;target name="clean"&gt;
        &lt;delete dir="build"/&gt;
    &lt;/target&gt;

    &lt;target name="compile"&gt;
        &lt;mkdir dir="build/classes"/&gt;
        &lt;javac srcdir="src" destdir="build/classes"/&gt;
    &lt;/target&gt;

    &lt;target name="jar"&gt;
        &lt;mkdir dir="build/jar"/&gt;
        &lt;jar destfile="build/jar/HelloWorld.jar" basedir="build/classes"&gt;
            &lt;manifest&gt;
                &lt;attribute name="Main-Class" value="oata.HelloWorld"/&gt;
            &lt;/manifest&gt;
        &lt;/jar&gt;
    &lt;/target&gt;

    &lt;target name="run"&gt;
        &lt;java jar="build/jar/HelloWorld.jar" fork="true"/&gt;
    &lt;/target&gt;

&lt;/project&gt;</pre>

<p>Now you can compile, package and run the application via</p>
<pre class="input">
ant compile
ant jar
ant run</pre>
<p>Or shorter with</p>
<pre class="input">ant compile jar run</pre>

<p>While having a look at the buildfile, we will see some similar steps between Ant and the Java-only commands:</p>
<table>
<tr>
  <th scope="col">Java-only</th>
  <th scope="col">Ant</th>
</tr>
<tr>
  <td><pre class="input">
md build\classes
javac
    -sourcepath src
    -d build\classes
    src\oata\HelloWorld.java
echo Main-Class: oata.HelloWorld>mf
md build\jar
jar cfm
    build\jar\HelloWorld.jar
    mf
    -C build\classes
    .


java -jar build\jar\HelloWorld.jar</pre></td>
  <td><pre>
&lt;mkdir dir="build/classes"/&gt;
&lt;javac
    srcdir="src"
    destdir="build/classes"/&gt;
<em>&lt;!-- automatically detected --&gt;</em>
<em>&lt;!-- obsolete; done via manifest tag --&gt;</em>
&lt;mkdir dir="build/jar"/&gt;
&lt;jar
    destfile="build/jar/HelloWorld.jar"

    basedir="build/classes"&gt;
    &lt;manifest&gt;
        &lt;attribute name="Main-Class" value="oata.HelloWorld"/&gt;
    &lt;/manifest&gt;
&lt;/jar&gt;
&lt;java jar="build/jar/HelloWorld.jar" fork="true"/&gt;</pre></td>
</tr>
</table>

<h2 id="enhance">Enhance the build file</h2>
<p>Now that we have a working buildfile, we could do some enhancements: many times you are referencing the same
directories, main-class and jar-name are hardcoded, and while invoking you have to remember the right order of build
steps.</p>
<p>The first and second point would be addressed with <em>properties</em>, the third with a special property&mdash;an
attribute of the <code>&lt;project&gt;</code> tag and the fourth problem can be solved using dependencies.</p>

<pre>
&lt;project name="HelloWorld" basedir="." default="main"&gt;

    &lt;property name="src.dir"     value="src"/&gt;

    &lt;property name="build.dir"   value="build"/&gt;
    &lt;property name="classes.dir" value="${build.dir}/classes"/&gt;
    &lt;property name="jar.dir"     value="${build.dir}/jar"/&gt;

    &lt;property name="main-class"  value="oata.HelloWorld"/&gt;


    &lt;target name="clean"&gt;
        &lt;delete dir="${build.dir}"/&gt;
    &lt;/target&gt;

    &lt;target name="compile"&gt;
        &lt;mkdir dir="${classes.dir}"/&gt;
        &lt;javac srcdir="${src.dir}" destdir="${classes.dir}"/&gt;
    &lt;/target&gt;

    &lt;target name="jar" depends="compile"&gt;
        &lt;mkdir dir="${jar.dir}"/&gt;
        &lt;jar destfile="${jar.dir}/${ant.project.name}.jar" basedir="${classes.dir}"&gt;
            &lt;manifest&gt;
                &lt;attribute name="Main-Class" value="${main-class}"/&gt;
            &lt;/manifest&gt;
        &lt;/jar&gt;
    &lt;/target&gt;

    &lt;target name="run" depends="jar"&gt;
        &lt;java jar="${jar.dir}/${ant.project.name}.jar" fork="true"/&gt;
    &lt;/target&gt;

    &lt;target name="clean-build" depends="clean,jar"/&gt;

    &lt;target name="main" depends="clean,run"/&gt;

&lt;/project&gt;</pre>

<p>Now it's easier, just do a <kbd>ant</kbd> and you will get</p>
<pre class="output">
Buildfile: build.xml

clean:

compile:
    [mkdir] Created dir: C:\...\build\classes
    [javac] Compiling 1 source file to C:\...\build\classes

jar:
    [mkdir] Created dir: C:\...\build\jar
      [jar] Building jar: C:\...\build\jar\HelloWorld.jar

run:
     [java] Hello World

main:

BUILD SUCCESSFUL</pre>

<h2 id="ext-libs">Using external libraries</h2>
<p>Somebody told us not to use <code>System</code>-statements. For output, we should use a Logging
API&mdash;customizable to a high degree (including switching off during usual life (= not development) execution). We
use Log4J for that, because</p>
<ul>
<li>it is not part of the JDK (1.4+) and we want to show how to use external libs</li>
<li>it can run under JDK 1.2 (as Ant)</li>
<li>it's highly configurable</li>
<li>it's from Apache ;-)</li>
</ul>
<p>We store our external libraries in a new directory <samp>lib</samp>. Log4J can
be <a href="https://archive.apache.org/dist/logging/log4j/1.2.17/log4j-1.2.17.zip" target="_top">downloaded
[1]</a> from Logging's Homepage.  Create the <samp>lib</samp> directory and extract the <samp>log4j-1.2.17.jar</samp>
into that directory. After that we have to modify our Java source file to use that library and our buildfile so that
this library could be accessed during compilation and run.</p>
<p>Working with Log4J is documented inside its manual. Here we use the <samp>MyApp</samp>-example from
the <a href="https://logging.apache.org/log4j/1.2/manual.html" target="_top">Short Manual [2]</a>. First we have to
modify the java source to use the logging framework:</p>

<pre>
package oata;

<b>import org.apache.log4j.Logger;</b>
<b>import org.apache.log4j.BasicConfigurator;</b>

public class HelloWorld {
    <b>static Logger logger = Logger.getLogger(HelloWorld.class);</b>

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        <b>BasicConfigurator.configure();</b>
        <span style="color:blue"><b>logger.info("Hello World");</b></span>          // the old SysO-statement
    }
}</pre>

<p>Most of the modifications are "framework overhead" which has to be done once. The blue line is our "old System-out"
statement.</p>
<p>Don't try to run <kbd>ant</kbd>&mdash;you will only get lot of compiler errors. Log4J is not on the classpath so we
have to do a little work here. But do not change the <code>CLASSPATH</code> environment variable! This is only for this
project and maybe you would break other environments (this is one of the most famous mistakes when working with Ant). We
introduce Log4J (or to be more precise: all libraries (jar-files) which are somewhere under <samp>.\lib</samp>) into our
buildfile:</p>

<pre>
&lt;project name="HelloWorld" basedir="." default="main"&gt;
    ...
    <b>&lt;property name="lib.dir"     value="lib"/&gt;</b>

    <b>&lt;path id="classpath"&gt;</b>
        <b>&lt;fileset dir="${lib.dir}" includes="**/*.jar"/&gt;</b>
    <b>&lt;/path&gt;</b>

    ...

    &lt;target name="compile"&gt;
        &lt;mkdir dir="${classes.dir}"/&gt;
        &lt;javac srcdir="${src.dir}" destdir="${classes.dir}" <b>classpathref="classpath"</b>/&gt;
    &lt;/target&gt;

    &lt;target name="run" depends="jar"&gt;
        &lt;java fork="true" <b>classname="${main-class}"</b>&gt;
            <b>&lt;classpath&gt;</b>
                <b>&lt;path refid="classpath"/&gt;</b>
                <span style="color:red"><b>&lt;path location="${jar.dir}/${ant.project.name}.jar"/&gt;</b></span>
            <b>&lt;/classpath&gt;</b>
        &lt;/java&gt;
    &lt;/target&gt;

    ...

&lt;/project&gt;</pre>

<p>In this example we start our application not via its <code>Main-Class</code> manifest-attribute, because we could not
provide a jar-name <em>and</em> a classpath. So add our class in the red line to the already defined path and start as
usual. Running <kbd>ant</kbd> would give (after the usual compile stuff):</p>

<pre class="output">[java] 0 [main] INFO oata.HelloWorld  - Hello World</pre>

<p>What's that?</p>
<ul>
<li><code>[java]</code> Ant task running at the moment</li>
<li><code>0</code> <small>sorry, don't know&mdash;some Log4J stuff</small></li>
<li><code>[main]</code> the running thread from our application</li>
    <li><code>INFO</code> log level of that statement</li>
    <li><code>oata.HelloWorld</code> source of that statement</li>
<li><code>-</code> separator</li>
<li><code>Hello World</code> the message</li>
</ul>
<p>For another layout ... have a look inside Log4J's documentation about using other PatternLayouts.</p>

<h2 id="config-files">Configuration files</h2>
<p>Why we have used Log4J? "It's highly configurable"? No&mdash;all is hardcoded! But that is not the fault of
Log4J&mdash;it's ours. We had coded <code class="code">BasicConfigurator.configure();</code> which implies a simple, but
hardcoded configuration. More comfortable would be using a property file. In the Java source file, delete
the <code class="code">BasicConfiguration</code> line from the <code class="code">main()</code> method (and the
related <code>import</code> statement). Log4J will search then for a configuration as described in its manual. Then
create a new file <samp>src/log4j.properties</samp>. That's the default name for Log4J's configuration and using that
name would make life easier&mdash;not only the framework knows what is inside, you too!</p>

<pre>
log4j.rootLogger=DEBUG, <b>stdout</b>

log4j.appender.<b>stdout</b>=org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender

log4j.appender.<b>stdout</b>.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.<b>stdout</b>.layout.ConversionPattern=<span style="color:blue"><b>%m%n</b></span>
</pre>

<p>This configuration creates an output channel (<q>Appender</q>) to console named as <code>stdout</code> which prints
the message (<q>%m</q>) followed by a line feed (<q>%n</q>)&mdash;same as the
earlier <code class="code">System.out.println()</code> :-) Oooh kay&mdash;but we haven't finished yet. We should deliver
the configuration file, too. So we change the buildfile:</p>

<pre>
    ...
    &lt;target name="compile"&gt;
        &lt;mkdir dir="${classes.dir}"/&gt;
        &lt;javac srcdir="${src.dir}" destdir="${classes.dir}" classpathref="classpath"/&gt;
        <b>&lt;copy todir="${classes.dir}"&gt;</b>
            <b>&lt;fileset dir="${src.dir}" excludes="**/*.java"/&gt;</b>
        <b>&lt;/copy&gt;</b>
    &lt;/target&gt;
    ...</pre>

<p>This copies all resources (as long as they haven't the suffix <samp>.java</samp>) to the build directory, so we could
start the application from that directory and these files will included into the jar.</p>

<h2 id="junit">Testing the class</h2>
<p>In this step we will introduce the usage of the JUnit [3] test framework in combination with Ant. Because Ant has a
built-in JUnit 4.12 you could start directly using it. Write a test class
in <samp>src\oata\HelloWorldTest.java</samp>:</p>

<pre>
package oata;

import org.junit.Test;

import static org.junit.Assert.fail;

public class HelloWorldTest {

    @Test
    public void testNothing() {
    }

    @Test
    public void testWillAlwaysFail() {
        fail("An error message");
    }

}</pre>

<p>Because we don't have real business logic to test, this test class is very small: just showing how to start. For
further information see the JUnit documentation [3] and the manual of <a href="Tasks/junit.html">junit</a> task.  Now we
add a <code>junit</code> instruction to our buildfile:</p>

<pre>
    ...

    &lt;path <b>id="application"</b> location="${jar.dir}/${ant.project.name}.jar"/&gt;

    &lt;target name="run" depends="jar"&gt;
        &lt;java fork="true" classname="${main-class}"&gt;
            &lt;classpath&gt;
                &lt;path refid="classpath"/&gt;
                <b>&lt;path refid="application"/&gt;</b>
            &lt;/classpath&gt;
        &lt;/java&gt;
    &lt;/target&gt;

    <b>&lt;target name="junit" depends="jar"&gt;
        &lt;junit printsummary="yes"&gt;
            &lt;classpath&gt;
                &lt;path refid="classpath"/&gt;
                &lt;path refid="application"/&gt;
            &lt;/classpath&gt;

            &lt;batchtest fork="yes"&gt;
                &lt;fileset dir="${src.dir}" includes="**/*Test.java"/&gt;
            &lt;/batchtest&gt;
        &lt;/junit&gt;
    &lt;/target&gt;</b>

    ...</pre>

<p>We reuse the path to our own jar file as defined in <q>run</q>-target by giving it an <var>id</var> and making it
globally available.  The <var>printsummary</var>=<q>yes</q> lets us see more detailed information than just a "FAILED"
or "PASSED" message.  How much tests failed? Some errors? <var>printsummary</var> lets us know.  The classpath is set up
to find our classes.  To run tests the <code>batchtest</code> here is used, so you could easily add more test classes in
the future just by naming them <code>*Test.java</code>.  This is a common naming scheme.</p>

<p>After a <kbd>ant junit</kbd> you'll get:</p>

<pre class="output">
...
junit:
    [junit] Running oata.HelloWorldTest
    [junit] Tests run: 2, Failures: 1, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0, Time elapsed: 0,01 sec
    [junit] Test oata.HelloWorldTest FAILED

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
...</pre>

<p>We can also produce a report. Something that you (and others) could read after closing the shell ...  There are two
steps: 1. let <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> log the information and 2. convert these log files to something readable
(browsable).<p>

<pre>
    ...
    <b>&lt;property name="report.dir"  value="${build.dir}/junitreport"/&gt;</b>
    ...
    &lt;target name="junit" depends="jar"&gt;
        <b>&lt;mkdir dir="${report.dir}"/&gt;</b>
        &lt;junit printsummary="yes"&gt;
            &lt;classpath&gt;
                &lt;path refid="classpath"/&gt;
                &lt;path refid="application"/&gt;
            &lt;/classpath&gt;

            <b>&lt;formatter type="xml"/&gt;</b>

            &lt;batchtest fork="yes" <b>todir="${report.dir}"</b>&gt;
                &lt;fileset dir="${src.dir}" includes="**/*Test.java"/&gt;
            &lt;/batchtest&gt;
        &lt;/junit&gt;
    &lt;/target&gt;

    <b>&lt;target name="junitreport"&gt;
        &lt;junitreport todir="${report.dir}"&gt;
            &lt;fileset dir="${report.dir}" includes="TEST-*.xml"/&gt;
            &lt;report todir="${report.dir}"/&gt;
        &lt;/junitreport&gt;
    &lt;/target&gt;</b></pre>

<p>Because we would produce a lot of files and these files would be written to the current directory by default, we
define a report directory, create it before running the <q>junit</q> and redirect the logging to it. The log format is
XML so <q>junitreport</q> could parse it. In a second target <q>junitreport</q> should create a browsable HTML report
for all generated XML log files in the report directory. Now you can open the <samp>${report.dir}\index.html</samp> and
see the result (looks something like JavaDoc).<br/>  Personally I use two different targets
for <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> and <code>&lt;junitreport&gt;</code>. Generating the HTML report needs some time and you
don't need the HTML report just for testing, e.g. if you are fixing an error or a integration server is doing a job.</p>

<h2 id="resources">Resources</h2>
<ol class="refs">
  <li><a href="https://archive.apache.org/dist/logging/log4j/1.2.17/log4j-1.2.17.zip"
         target="_top">https://archive.apache.org/dist/logging/log4j/1.2.17/log4j-1.2.17.zip</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://logging.apache.org/log4j/1.2/manual.html"
         target="_top">https://logging.apache.org/log4j/1.2/manual.html</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://junit.org/junit4" target="_top">https://junit.org/junit4</a></li>
</ol>

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