Develop Reference

ANT unzip every jar except one

I have an ANT target that unzips every jar with a "for" task, but I want to exclude a specific jar called Neo.jar. This is what I have so far, but it is unzipping every single jar that is available to it.
<target name="unzipjars">
<for param="jar">
<sequential>
<unzip dest="${expanded.dirs}" src="#{jar}">
<exclude name="Neo.jar/**"/>
</unzip>
</sequential>
</for>
</target>
I was looking at trying to exclude something from "for param="jar"" but I don't think anything like that exists. The "exclude name" for Neo.jar doesn't seem to work because I believe it doesn't think it is a directory because it is a jar

As you can see here, it's quietly easy.
All you need is to add the tag patternset to your configuration (and you don't need to iterate by the way...). Like this:
<target name="unzipjars">
<unzip dest="${expanded.dirs}">
<patternset>
<exclude name="**/Neo.jar"/>
</patternset>
<fileset dir="${jar}">
<include name="**/*.*"/>
</fileset>
</unzip>
</target>

You can use the if task (http://ant-contrib.sourceforge.net/tasks/tasks/if.html) to filter out the Neo.jar file. For example
<for param="jar">
<sequential>
<if>
<not><equals arg1="#{jar}" arg2="Neo.jar" /></not>
<then><!-- unzip the jar --></then>
</if>
</sequential>
</for>

Ant exec command argument dealing with multiple files

I am using ant exec command to implement the less utility to view the source code of a bunch of .java files. (I know that there are other ways to do this like using concat)
So the call ant view works if I specify only one file:
<target name="view">
<exec executable="less" dir=".">
<arg value="Main.java"/>
</exec>
</target>
But if I change my code to <arg value="*.java"/> to view all files, it actually searches for a file named *.java.
Apparently I can put a bunch of arg's for each file, but is there a way to do this with one arg ?

The * glob is expanded by the shell on Unix-likes, that's why less doesn't do it itself.
Apart from <exec> there is <apply> which works on a resource collection:
<apply executable="less" dir="." parallel="true" relative="true">
<fileset dir="." includes="*.java"/>
</apply>

You can use foreach which requires ant-contrib
<target name="view">
<foreach target="call-less" param="file">
<fileset dir="${src}" includes="**/*.java" />
</foreach>
</target>
<target name="call-less">
<exec executable="less">
<arg value="${file}" />
</exec>
</target>

Only generate source files if definitions have changed ant

I run a script that generates some java code based on definition files. I want to avoid running this task if the definition files have not changed.
<target name="generate" depends="init">
<exec executable="${codeGenTool-path}">
<arg value="${definitionFolder}" />
<arg value="${generatedFolder}" />
</exec>
</target>
I looked at http://ant.apache.org/manual/Tasks/uptodate.html but It seems like I must have a single target file to compare to. The code generation tool creates a folder containing many source files.

This is a good use case for the outofdate task from ant-contrib:
<outofdate>
<sourcefiles>
<fileset dir="${definitionFolder}" />
</sourcefiles>
<targetfiles>
<fileset dir="${generatedFolder}" />
</targetfiles>
<sequential>
<exec executable="${codeGenTool-path}">
<arg value="${definitionFolder}" />
<arg value="${generatedFolder}" />
</exec>
</sequential>
</outofdate>
This will check every file under the definitionFolder against every file under the generatedFolder - you might want to constrain the filesets more tightly, e.g. with includes="**/*.def" or whatever is the relevant file extension.
Alternatively, if you want to avoid "third party" tasks then you could use a dependset task to check the target files against the source ones.
<target name="generate" depends="check.generate, do.generate" />
<target name="check.generate">
<dependset>
<srcfileset dir="${definitionFolder}" />
<targetfileset dir="${generatedFolder}" />
</dependset>
<condition property="gen.required">
<resourcecount count="0" when="equal">
<fileset dir="${generatedFolder}" />
</resourcecount>
</condition>
</target>
<target name="do.generate" if="gen.required">
<exec ....>
</target>
The dependset task deletes all the target files if any of them are older than any of the source files, so we can make do.generate conditional - it will run if there are no files in the generatedFolder, which will be the case when either it's never been run before, or the generated files were out of date.

How can I build my jar file so that users who use the library will be able to see the javadoc in Eclipse

I'm working on a small library for our in-company use, and have been heavily documenting it. Now I'm building my jar with the following code:
<project name="commonutils" default="compile" basedir=".">
<property name="src" location="src" />
<property name="build" location="buildDirecotry" />
<target name="compile">
<delete file="${ant.project.name}.jar" />
<mkdir dir="${build}"/>
<javac srcdir="${src}" destdir="${build}" debug="on" target="1.5">
<classpath>
<pathelement location="lib/build/server.zip" />
<pathelement path="${java.class.path}/"/>
</classpath>
</javac>
<jar basedir="${build}" destfile="${ant.project.name}.jar" />
<delete dir="${build}" />
</target>
</project>
Which works fine, it builds my jar file with all the src files in it, but when I include the jar file in another project I no-longer have any of my javadoc comments. Using JDDecompiler I cannot see the comments in the class file, although I'm not sure if its the java compiler that's stripping them or JD.
My question is: How can I build my jar file so that users who use the library will be able to see the javadoc in Eclipse.

If you include the source files in the jar (each class and java file in the same package-directory) it should work.
<target name="jar.noCompile.src">
<jar destfile="${ant.project.name}.jar">
<fileset dir="${build}"/>
<fileset dir="${src}" includes="**/*.java"/>
</jar>
</target>

AFAIK the documentation is an Eclipse feature. You have to configure it manually. In your build generate the documentation (usually into folder 'javadoc') and package it with the JAR. Once someone wants to use your library, he/she has to go into Java Build Path select libraries, add yours, click next to it to open the tree node and then double click on Javadoc location to configure it.

Ant compile doesn't copy the resources

I created my own build.xml which has:
<target name="compile">
<mkdir dir="build"/>
<javac destdir="build">
<src path="src"/>
</javac>
</target>
<target name="build" depends="compile">
<mkdir dir="dist"/>
<jar destfile="dist/app.jar" basedir="build" />
</target>
<target name="run" depends="compile">
<java classname="webserver.Loader" classpath="build" fork="true" />
</target>
It works great. When I call ant run so it compiles and runs my application, but my application has a package with icons and it isn't moved to a folder "build" so my application ends with an exception that it couldn't locate my icons. When I move them by myself then it works.
I tried to use
<copy todir="build/app/icons">
<fileset dir="src/app/icons"/>
</copy>
It works, but I would like to do it without the copy command. Is there any parameter to javac? Or something else?
Thank you for answer.

There is no such parameter. You can copy all sorts of files between your directories with:
<copy todir="build">
<fileset dir="src"
includes="**/*.xml,**/*.properties,**/*.txt,**/*.ico" />
</copy>

Sorry, you will need to copy non-java files manually. Resources are technically not "source". The command-line javac will not copy resource files from your source directory to the output directory, neither will ant's javac task.

You can do this using the fileset element of the jar task instead of manually copying the files. For example:
<jar destfile="dist/app.jar" basedir="build">
<fileset dir="src" includes="app/icons/**" />
</jar>
This will copy everything in src/app/icons/ to the app/icons path in your .jar file.

No, there isn't. The copy task is the correct way to copy resources into your build folders.