I wrote an ant task to run my project in NetBeans (I'm using a freeform java project). Now I want to write a debug task. The debug task is nearly identical to the run task except for a few added properties. Can I subclass the run task and add in the extra properties?
Since an Ant task implementation is a Java class, Ant tasks may be subclassed just like any other Java class. However, the usual method for testing tasks is to write both JUnit and AntUnit tests.
For examples, take a look at the Apache Ant source code under tests.
We have a python auto-build system in a C# project. It will do daily source update and build automatically and send email out if build failed. Now we are thinking to have a similar system for our Java project.
We use Ant in this Java project, but not Log4j.
It looks like the simple way (for us) is use python and call Ant to do build, and write result to file, and then paser the result file to see failed or not.
Do you have a better idea?
I'd recommend using a continuous integration server such as Jenkins. It's simple to set up, has Ant integration built-in and will do all the parsing of results and reporting builds as passed or failed for you, plus much, much more.
Is there any way by which i can see any errors in build.xml file without running the build again? i mean is there any tool for that?
If you happen to use any IDE (like Eclipse for Java EE Developers edition), they include support for editing of ant build files, including code completion, syntactical error detection etc.
Syntactic parsing of build.xml happens during start of ant. You can just add "empty" ant task that does nothing and run it to validate your build.xml. Candidate for such empty task is task which just prints out targets declared inside build.xml, i.e., "usage help page".
Besides this kind of validation, you can't be 100% sure your build.xml is correct without actually running build process.
I am trying to run an automated suite every day at the same time, so I want to create a task to open eclipse and execute the main script every day. Is there a way to do this from the command line?
Instead of using eclipse for it, use a software that is dedicated for it - continous integration servers are created for it. Check such titles like: hudson, cruiseControl, TeamCity
You are on the wrong path. Instead of trying to automate opening eclipse, executing a main... break the IDE dependency, write a portable build script using Ant or Maven and execute that build script outside the IDE (using a simple cron job or something more elaborated like a Continuous Integration tool but I'm not sure you need a CI tool for now, start with the build script).
So I am assuming that you want to automate something that you run from inside eclipse. if it's a build then I'm with the other guys that using a build script and CI is the way to go.
But in case it's not that use case...
Now, if you are using the "Run.." dialogs to do this you can actually get the command line paths, binaries and arguments that eclipse used to execute.
What you do is open up the debug perspective. Then run your script however you normally do.
Your Process should appear in the "Debug View" at this point.
Either while the process is running or after termination, right click on the process and open up the properties. (you may need to click 1 level down in the tree to get this option)
Under process info, inside of that there is a section "Command Line". This is the exact command line that eclipse executed behind the scenes to run.
you should be able to put this into a script (.bat for windows / sh for *nix) and schedule accordingly.
edit: added in assumptions, changed to use process info terms which is what is on the properties screen.
I see reference of ant a lot but I don't get exactly what its meant to do? from what i've heard its supposed to compile your projects but can't i just do that by clicking Run->Run in eclipse?
Edit : I guess I should rephrase my question. I already know that ant is a 'build automation software', my question is, what exactly is build automation? I thought that you're supposed to test your app, and when it is running you click the 'build' button in eclipse or through command-line java, and it makes a .jar file out of it? So why do you need to 'automate' this process?
I already know that ant is a 'build automation software', my question is, what exactly is build automation? I thought that you're supposed to test your app, and when it is running you click the 'build' button in eclipse or through command-line java, and it makes a .jar file out of it? So why do you need to 'automate' this process?
Not all the Java development is done through eclipse and not all the jars may be built from the command line ( or should be built from the command line ) .
You may need additionally run test cases, unit tests, and many, many other process.
What ant does, is provide a mechanism to automate all this work ( so you don't have to do it every time ) and perhaps you may invoke this ant script each day at 6 p.m.
For instance, in some projects, a daily build is needed, the following are the task that may be automated with ant, so they can run without human intervention.
Connect to subversion server.
Download/update with the latest version
Compile the application
Run the test cases
Pack the application ( in jar, war, ear, or whatever )
Commit this build binaries to subversion.
Install the application in a remote server
Restart the server
Send an email with the summary of the job.
Of course for other projects this is overkill, but for some others is very helpful.
rogeriopvl is absolutely correct, but to answer your "can't I just do that by clicking Run->Run in Eclipse?" question: that's fine for a project that you're working on on your own, and don't need a repeatable, scriptable build in multiple environments.
If you're working on an open source project, however, or professional software which needs to be able to build on a build server etc, requiring a particular IDE to be running isn't a good idea.
Ant is used to automate a build process, but a build process is often much more than compiling. Ant has "tasks" that can be used to perform miscellaneous useful functions. You can create your own task to do just about anything by writing a java class and telling ant where to find it. You can then mix and match these tasks to create targets that will execute a set of tasks.
You can also set up a dynamic environment in which to build your application. You can set up property files to hold variables that can be used in the build process, i.e. to hold file paths, class paths, etc. This is useful for instance to differentiate between test and production builds where deployment paths, database instances, etc. might change. Ant also includes flow control (if, etc.)
Some things I've seen ant do:
Compile code
Use version control to checkout the latest version or to tag the version being built
Run sql scripts to build or rebuild a test database
Copy files from an external resource for inclusion in a project
Bundle code into a jar, war or ear file
Deploy a web application to an application server
Restart an application server
Execute a test suite
Static analysis, i.e. CheckStyle or PMD
Send email to a team to alert them to a build.
Generate files based on information from the build.
Example: I have a jsp in my app that does nothing but display version/build information. It is generated by ant when I run a build, and the production operations team checks this page when they deploy the application to make sure they've deployed the correct build.
In many larger companies (and likely some smaller ones), you'll find that production code is not built by the people who developed it. Instead, the developers may check their code into a source code repository and tag it. Then they give this tag to a build team.
The build team, in a separate (clean) area - possibly on some headless server (i.e. with no GUI) - will then check out the code and run a build script. The build script will be completely independent of the desktop environment/IDE.
This ensures that nothing which happens to be on any one developer's computer is "polluting" the build. (Or, more likely, nothing outside source control is required for the system to work!)
So most software you use will never, ever be built from a developer's desktop.
PS. You might also want to look at the idea of Continuous Integration
The short answer is that Ant is a great way to create a complete project build that is independent of any particular tool any developer may be using. Without an independent build, things can go haywire quickly - especially for large project teams.
And now for the long answer... I have been brought into several projects without any sense of an independent build. On one project, there was one guy who was not a developer that was tasked with building and deploying the software. He had created 147 separate windows batch files to compile each EJB, each servlet, and each client component. There was no error checking for this build. All log messages, including error messages went to standard out. It was up to him to manually recognize by reading this log which exception or message printed was a normal and which message was an error. He also had to deploy this software he just built. Deploying was equally as complex since there were several load-balanced tiers. Each module had to be placed in the right place manually with options setup to match downstream and upstream tiers. Building and deploying this software took him at least 3 days using this method. Of course, only then could anyone determine if the build "worked". Usually, after this period all the programmers would scramble to debug the build. Programmers would say my module works fine in my IDE. I just click run like this, see?
Indeed, the individual software modules usually worked, but the build and deployment was horribly ineffective. And just as bad, it was equally as difficult for anyone to deploy a build to more than one environment. Management would say, ok you now have this build working in our regression testing environment. Now deploy that same build in this other environment so the sales guys can demo up and coming software. That should be simple to do, but it also took at least 2 days, followed by a "debugging the build" period. Builds and deploys were never simple and never accurate. It really slowed the project down.
Anyway, we replaced this entire procedure with a complete Ant based build and deploy mechanism. The end result was that a complete build could be created and deployed in less than 30 minutes, completely automated. The QA guy managing the builds and deploys could keep a whiteboard of which environment had which build deployed to it and which group was using that environment. This was something that was just not possible with the old system.
Ant is for automating software build processes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Ant
Ant allows CRISP (complete, repeatable, informative, schedulable, portable) builds. You can find great info on it in this presentation by Mike Clark and in his book, Pragmatic Project Automation.
Ant is a build tool, akin to makefiles (albeit with a very different syntax in XML). If you're only using Eclipse it's fine to stick to that and you can always convert an Ant build file into an Eclipse project (Eclipse's launch configurations are then, if I remember correctly, the equivalent of Ant's build targets).
If you want to deploy the source code of the application and allow others to easily build or set it up, automating that using Ant is probably not a bad idea. But it's usually not a consistent experience for users or at least I haven't seen much consensus on what targets should be there and doing what so far.
Ant may also be used for regular automated builds (you wouldn't want to hit Run in Eclipse every night, right? :-))
If there's one close to you I think you'd get a lot out of CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference. You get to talk with lots of people about the benefits of automation applied to building and testing software.
Basically people use Ant (with other tools) to automate everything they want to have happen after a commit. The basic advantages of such automation are faster, better and cheaper.
Faster because things happen right away without waiting for a human to get around to it.
Better because computers are really really good at doing the same thing the same way every time. (Humans tend to suck at that.)
Cheaper because you have fewer mistake and the mistakes that occur are caught sooner and therefore cheaper to fix.
You are also referring to the ""Export ant buildfile".
If you write your own Ant script for building your application outside eclipse, you can write your own targets that use the Ant task to delegate to the generated build.xml.
Also, you can configure a project's 'builders' (project properties ยป Builders) to run any script (ant or otherwise) you want when you build the project, manually or automatically.
Joel (Spolsky) has a great article on "The Joel Test." Many of them revolve around being able to do important things often, quickly and reliably. One of those things is your build.
Eclipse is using ant for building, running, deploying, ...
"Ant is a Java-based build tool. In theory, it is kind of like Make, without Make's wrinkles and with the full portability of pure Java code." (from link text