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  161. <div class="lightbluebar">&nbsp;</div>
  162. <div class="main">
  163. <div class="content">
  164. <h1 class="title">Frequently Asked Questions</h1>
  165. <h3 class="section">Questions</h3>
  166. <h4 class="toc">About this FAQ</h4>
  167. <ul>
  168. <li><a href="#latest-version">
  169. Where do I find the latest version of this
  170. document?
  171. </a></li>
  172. <li><a href="#adding-faqs">
  173. How can I contribute to this FAQ?
  174. </a></li>
  175. <li><a href="#creating-faq">
  176. How do you create the HTML version of this
  177. FAQ?
  178. </a></li>
  179. </ul>
  180. <h4 class="toc">General</h4>
  181. <ul>
  182. <li><a href="#what-is-ant">
  183. What is Apache Ant?
  184. </a></li>
  185. <li><a href="#ant-name">
  186. Why do you call it Ant?
  187. </a></li>
  188. <li><a href="#history">
  189. Tell us a little bit about Ant's history.
  190. </a></li>
  191. </ul>
  192. <h4 class="toc">Installation</h4>
  193. <ul>
  194. <li><a href="#no-gnu-tar">
  195. I get checksum errors when I try to extract the
  196. <code>tar.gz</code> distribution file. Why?
  197. </a></li>
  198. </ul>
  199. <h4 class="toc">How do I ...</h4>
  200. <ul>
  201. <li><a href="#implement-os-specific-configuration">
  202. How do I realize os--specific configurations?
  203. </a></li>
  204. <li><a href="#adding-external-tasks">
  205. How do I add an external task that I've written to the
  206. page "External Tools and Task"?
  207. </a></li>
  208. <li><a href="#passing-cli-args">
  209. How do I pass parameters from the command line to my
  210. build file?
  211. </a></li>
  212. <li><a href="#jikes-switches">
  213. How can I use Jikes-specific command-line
  214. switches?
  215. </a></li>
  216. <li><a href="#shell-redirect-1">
  217. How do I include a &lt; character in my command-line arguments?
  218. </a></li>
  219. <li><a href="#shell-redirect-2">
  220. How do I redirect standard input or standard output
  221. in the <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code> task?
  222. </a></li>
  223. <li><a href="#batch-shell-execute">
  224. How do I execute a batch file or shell script from Ant?
  225. </a></li>
  226. <li><a href="#multi-conditions">
  227. I want to execute a particular target only if
  228. multiple conditions are true.
  229. </a></li>
  230. <li><a href="#encoding">
  231. How can I include national characters like German
  232. umlauts in my build file?
  233. </a></li>
  234. <li><a href="#use-zip-instead-of-jar">
  235. How do I use <code>jar</code>'s <code>M</code> switch?
  236. I don't want a MANIFEST.
  237. </a></li>
  238. <li><a href="#propertyvalue-as-name-for-property">
  239. How can I do something like <code>&lt;property name="prop"
  240. value="${${anotherprop}}"/&gt;</code> (double expanding the property)?
  241. </a></li>
  242. </ul>
  243. <h4 class="toc">It doesn't work (as expected)</h4>
  244. <ul>
  245. <li><a href="#always-recompiles">
  246. Why does Ant always recompile all my Java files?
  247. </a></li>
  248. <li><a href="#defaultexcludes">
  249. I've used a <code>&lt;delete&gt;</code> task to
  250. delete unwanted SourceSafe control files (CVS files, editor
  251. backup files, etc.), but it doesn't seem to work; the files
  252. never get deleted. What's wrong?
  253. </a></li>
  254. <li><a href="#stop-dependency">
  255. I have a target I want to skip if a property is set,
  256. so I have <code>unless="property"</code> as an attribute
  257. of the target, but all the targets this target
  258. depends on are still executed. Why?
  259. </a></li>
  260. <li><a href="#include-order">
  261. In my <code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>, I've put in an
  262. <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> of all files followed by an
  263. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> of just the files I want, but it
  264. isn't giving me any files at all. What's wrong?
  265. </a></li>
  266. <li><a href="#properties-not-trimmed">
  267. <code>ant</code> failed to build my program via javac
  268. even when I put the needed jars in an external
  269. <code>build.properties</code> file and reference them by
  270. <code>pathelement</code> or <code>classpath refid</code>.
  271. </a></li>
  272. <li><a href="#winzip-lies">
  273. Ant creates WAR files with a lower-case
  274. <code>web-inf</code> or JAR files with a lower-case
  275. <code>meta-inf</code> directory.
  276. </a></li>
  277. </ul>
  278. <h4 class="toc">Ant and IDEs/Editors</h4>
  279. <ul>
  280. <li><a href="#integration">
  281. Is Ant supported by my IDE/Editor?
  282. </a></li>
  283. <li><a href="#emacs-mode">
  284. Why doesn't (X)Emacs/vi/MacOS X's project builder
  285. correctly parse the error messages generated by Ant?
  286. </a></li>
  287. </ul>
  288. <h4 class="toc">Advanced Issues</h4>
  289. <ul>
  290. <li><a href="#dtd">
  291. Is there a DTD that I can use to validate my build
  292. files?
  293. </a></li>
  294. <li><a href="#xml-entity-include">
  295. How do I include an XML snippet in my build file?
  296. </a></li>
  297. <li><a href="#mail-logger">
  298. How do I send an email with the result of my build
  299. process?
  300. </a></li>
  301. <li><a href="#listener-properties">
  302. How do I get at the properties that Ant was running
  303. with from inside BuildListener?
  304. </a></li>
  305. </ul>
  306. <h4 class="toc">Known Problems</h4>
  307. <ul>
  308. <li><a href="#remove-cr">
  309. &lt;chmod&gt; or &lt;exec&gt; doesn't work in Ant
  310. 1.3 on Unix
  311. </a></li>
  312. <li><a href="#javadoc-cannot-execute">
  313. JavaDoc failed: java.io.IOException: javadoc: cannot execute
  314. </a></li>
  315. <li><a href="#delegating-classloader">
  316. &lt;style&gt; or &lt;junit&gt; ignores my
  317. &lt;classpath&gt;
  318. </a></li>
  319. <li><a href="#winxp-jdk14-ant14">
  320. When running Ant 1.4 on Windows XP and JDK 1.4, I get
  321. various errors when trying to <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code>, fork
  322. <code>&lt;java&gt;</code> or access environment
  323. variables.
  324. </a></li>
  325. <li><a href="#1.5-cygwin-sh">
  326. The <code>ant</code> wrapper script of Ant 1.5 fails
  327. for Cygwin if <code>ANT_HOME</code> is set to a Windows style
  328. path.
  329. </a></li>
  330. <li><a href="#1.5.2-zip-broken">
  331. <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> is broken in Ant 1.5.2.
  332. </a></li>
  333. <li><a href="#unknownelement.taskcontainer">
  334. Why do my custom task containers see Unknown Elements in Ant 1.6
  335. - they worked in Ant 1.5?
  336. </a></li>
  337. <li><a href="#java.exception.stacktrace">
  338. The program I run via &lt;java&gt; throws an exception but I
  339. can't seem to get the full stack trace.
  340. </a></li>
  341. <li><a href="#junit-no-runtime-xml">
  342. Using format="xml", &lt;junit&gt; fails with a
  343. <code>NoClassDefFoundError</code> if forked.
  344. </a></li>
  345. <li><a href="#xalan-jdk1.5">
  346. <code>&lt;junitreport&gt;</code> doesn't work with JDK 1.5 but
  347. worked fine with JDK 1.4.
  348. </a></li>
  349. </ul>
  350. <h3 class="section">Answers</h3>
  351. <p class="faq">
  352. <a name="latest-version"></a>
  353. Where do I find the latest version of this
  354. document?
  355. </p>
  356. <p>The latest version can always be found at Ant's homepage
  357. <a href="http://ant.apache.org/faq.html">http://ant.apache.org/faq.html</a>.</p>
  358. <p class="faq">
  359. <a name="adding-faqs"></a>
  360. How can I contribute to this FAQ?
  361. </p>
  362. <p>The page you are looking it is generated from
  363. <a href="http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs.cgi/~checkout~/ant/xdocs/faq.xml">this</a>
  364. document. If you want to add a new question, please submit
  365. a patch against this document to one of Ant's mailing lists;
  366. hopefully, the structure is self-explanatory.</p>
  367. <p>If you don't know how to create a patch, see the patches
  368. section of <a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/site/source.html">this
  369. page</a>.</p>
  370. <p class="faq">
  371. <a name="creating-faq"></a>
  372. How do you create the HTML version of this
  373. FAQ?
  374. </p>
  375. <p>We use
  376. <a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity/anakia.html">Anakia</a>
  377. to render the HTML version from the original XML file.</p>
  378. <p>The Velocity stylesheets used to process the XML files can
  379. be found in the <code>xdocs/stylesheets</code> subdirectory of
  380. Ant's CVS repository - the build file
  381. <code>docs.xml</code> at the top level of the ant CVS
  382. module is used to drive Anakia.</p>
  383. <p>This file assumes that you have the
  384. <code>jakarta-site2</code> CVS module checked out as well, but
  385. if you follow the instruction from Anakia's homepage, you
  386. should get it to work without that. Just make sure all
  387. required jars are in the task's classpath.</p>
  388. <p class="faq">
  389. <a name="what-is-ant"></a>
  390. What is Apache Ant?
  391. </p>
  392. <p> Ant is a Java-based build tool. In theory, it is kind of
  393. like Make, without Make's wrinkles and with the full
  394. portability of pure Java code.</p>
  395. <p class="faq">
  396. <a name="ant-name"></a>
  397. Why do you call it Ant?
  398. </p>
  399. <p>According to Ant's original author, James Duncan
  400. Davidson, the name is an acronym for "Another Neat
  401. Tool".</p>
  402. <p>Later explanations go along the lines of "ants
  403. do an extremely good job at building things", or
  404. "ants are very small and can carry a weight dozens of times
  405. their own" - describing what Ant is intended to
  406. be.</p>
  407. <p class="faq">
  408. <a name="history"></a>
  409. Tell us a little bit about Ant's history.
  410. </p>
  411. <p>Initially, Ant was part of the Tomcat code base, when it was
  412. donated to the Apache Software Foundation. It was
  413. created by James Duncan Davidson, who is also the original
  414. author of Tomcat. Ant was there to build Tomcat, nothing
  415. else.</p>
  416. <p>Soon thereafter, several open source Java projects realized
  417. that Ant could solve the problems they had with Makefiles.
  418. Starting with the projects hosted at Jakarta and the old Java
  419. Apache project, Ant spread like a virus and is now the build
  420. tool of choice for a lot of projects.</p>
  421. <p>In January 2000, Ant was moved to a separate CVS module and
  422. was promoted to a project of its own, independent of
  423. Tomcat, and became Apache Ant.</p>
  424. <p>The first version of Ant that was exposed to a larger audience
  425. was the one that shipped with Tomcat's 3.1 release on 19 April
  426. 2000. This version has later been referred to as Ant
  427. 0.3.1.</p>
  428. <p>The first official release of Ant as a stand-alone product was
  429. Ant 1.1, released on 19 July 2000. The complete release
  430. history:</p>
  431. <table class="ForrestTable" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="4">
  432. <tr>
  433. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  434. valign="top" align="left">
  435. Ant Version
  436. </th>
  437. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  438. valign="top" align="left">
  439. Release Date
  440. </th>
  441. </tr>
  442. <tr>
  443. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  444. valign="top" align="left">
  445. 1.1
  446. </td>
  447. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  448. valign="top" align="left">
  449. 19 July 2000
  450. </td>
  451. </tr>
  452. <tr>
  453. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  454. valign="top" align="left">
  455. 1.2
  456. </td>
  457. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  458. valign="top" align="left">
  459. 24 October 2000
  460. </td>
  461. </tr>
  462. <tr>
  463. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  464. valign="top" align="left">
  465. 1.3
  466. </td>
  467. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  468. valign="top" align="left">
  469. 3 March 2001
  470. </td>
  471. </tr>
  472. <tr>
  473. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  474. valign="top" align="left">
  475. 1.4
  476. </td>
  477. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  478. valign="top" align="left">
  479. 3 September 2001
  480. </td>
  481. </tr>
  482. <tr>
  483. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  484. valign="top" align="left">
  485. 1.4.1
  486. </td>
  487. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  488. valign="top" align="left">
  489. 11 October 2001
  490. </td>
  491. </tr>
  492. <tr>
  493. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  494. valign="top" align="left">
  495. 1.5
  496. </td>
  497. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  498. valign="top" align="left">
  499. 10 July 2002
  500. </td>
  501. </tr>
  502. <tr>
  503. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  504. valign="top" align="left">
  505. 1.5.1
  506. </td>
  507. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  508. valign="top" align="left">
  509. 3 October 2002
  510. </td>
  511. </tr>
  512. <tr>
  513. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  514. valign="top" align="left">
  515. 1.5.2
  516. </td>
  517. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  518. valign="top" align="left">
  519. 3 March 2003
  520. </td>
  521. </tr>
  522. <tr>
  523. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  524. valign="top" align="left">
  525. 1.5.3
  526. </td>
  527. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  528. valign="top" align="left">
  529. 9 April 2003
  530. </td>
  531. </tr>
  532. <tr>
  533. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  534. valign="top" align="left">
  535. 1.5.4
  536. </td>
  537. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  538. valign="top" align="left">
  539. 12 August 2003
  540. </td>
  541. </tr>
  542. <tr>
  543. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  544. valign="top" align="left">
  545. 1.6.0
  546. </td>
  547. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  548. valign="top" align="left">
  549. 18 December 2003
  550. </td>
  551. </tr>
  552. <tr>
  553. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  554. valign="top" align="left">
  555. 1.6.1
  556. </td>
  557. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  558. valign="top" align="left">
  559. 12 February 2004
  560. </td>
  561. </tr>
  562. </table>
  563. <p class="faq">
  564. <a name="no-gnu-tar"></a>
  565. I get checksum errors when I try to extract the
  566. <code>tar.gz</code> distribution file. Why?
  567. </p>
  568. <p>Ant's distribution contains file names that are longer
  569. than 100 characters, which is not supported by the standard
  570. tar file format. Several different implementations of tar use
  571. different and incompatible ways to work around this
  572. restriction.</p>
  573. <p>Ant's &lt;tar&gt; task can create tar archives that use
  574. the GNU tar extension, and this has been used when putting
  575. together the distribution. If you are using a different
  576. version of tar (for example, the one shipping with Solaris),
  577. you cannot use it to extract the archive.</p>
  578. <p>The solution is to either install GNU tar, which can be
  579. found <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/tar.html">here</a>,
  580. or use the zip archive instead (you can extract it using
  581. <code>jar xf</code>).</p>
  582. <p class="faq">
  583. <a name="implement-os-specific-configuration"></a>
  584. How do I realize os--specific configurations?
  585. </p>
  586. <p>The core idea is using property files which name accords to the
  587. os-name. Then simply use the build-in property <tt>os.name</tt>.</p>
  588. <p>For better use you should also provide a file with defaul values.
  589. But be careful with the correct os-names. For test simply &lt;echo&gt;
  590. the ${os.name} on all machines and you can be sure to use the right
  591. file names.</p>
  592. <pre class="code">
  593. &lt;property file=&quot;${os.name}.properties&quot;/&gt;
  594. &lt;property file=&quot;default.properties&quot;/&gt;
  595. </pre>
  596. <p class="faq">
  597. <a name="adding-external-tasks"></a>
  598. How do I add an external task that I've written to the
  599. page "External Tools and Task"?
  600. </p>
  601. <p>Join and post a message to the dev or user mailing
  602. list (one list is enough), including the following
  603. information:</p>
  604. <ul>
  605. <li>the name of the task/tool</li>
  606. <li>a short description of the task/tool</li>
  607. <li>a Compatibility: entry stating with which version(s) of
  608. Ant the tool/task is compatible to</li>
  609. <li>a URL: entry linking to the main page of the tool/task</li>
  610. <li>a Contact: entry containing the email address or the URL
  611. of a webpage for the person or list to contact for issues
  612. related to the tool/task. <strong>Note that we'll add a
  613. link on the page, so any email address added there is not
  614. obfuscated and can (and probably will) be abused by robots
  615. harvesting websites for addresses to spam.</strong></li>
  616. <li>a License: entry containing the type of license for the
  617. tool/task</li>
  618. </ul>
  619. <p>The preferred format for this information is a patch to <a href="http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs.cgi/~checkout~/ant/xdocs/external.xml">this</a>
  620. document.</p>
  621. <p>If you have written something bigger than a 'simple plugin' to Ant it
  622. may be better to add the link to <a href="projects.html">projects.html</a>.
  623. The procedure to add it is the same. The file to patch is <a href="http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs.cgi/~checkout~/ant/xdocs/projects.xml">this</a>
  624. document. The syntax of that file is the same.</p>
  625. <p class="faq">
  626. <a name="passing-cli-args"></a>
  627. How do I pass parameters from the command line to my
  628. build file?
  629. </p>
  630. <p>Use properties. Using <code>ant
  631. -D<em>name</em>=<em>value</em></code> lets you define values for
  632. properties on the Ant command line. These properties can then be
  633. used within your build file as
  634. any normal property: <code>${<em>name</em>}</code> will put in
  635. <code><em>value</em></code>.</p>
  636. <p class="faq">
  637. <a name="jikes-switches"></a>
  638. How can I use Jikes-specific command-line
  639. switches?
  640. </p>
  641. <p>A couple of switches are supported via "magic"
  642. properties:</p>
  643. <table class="ForrestTable" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="4">
  644. <tr>
  645. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  646. valign="top" align="left">
  647. switch
  648. </th>
  649. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  650. valign="top" align="left">
  651. property
  652. </th>
  653. <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  654. valign="top" align="left">
  655. default
  656. </th>
  657. </tr>
  658. <tr>
  659. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  660. valign="top" align="left">
  661. +E
  662. </td>
  663. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  664. valign="top" align="left">
  665. build.compiler.emacs
  666. </td>
  667. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  668. valign="top" align="left">
  669. false == not set
  670. </td>
  671. </tr>
  672. <tr>
  673. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  674. valign="top" align="left">
  675. +P
  676. </td>
  677. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  678. valign="top" align="left">
  679. build.compiler.pedantic
  680. </td>
  681. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  682. valign="top" align="left">
  683. false == not set
  684. </td>
  685. </tr>
  686. <tr>
  687. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  688. valign="top" align="left">
  689. +F
  690. </td>
  691. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  692. valign="top" align="left">
  693. build.compiler.fulldepend
  694. </td>
  695. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  696. valign="top" align="left">
  697. false == not set
  698. </td>
  699. </tr>
  700. <tr>
  701. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  702. valign="top" align="left">
  703. <strong>(Only for Ant &lt; 1.4; replaced by the
  704. <code><strong>nowarn</strong></code>
  705. attribute of the <code><strong>&lt;javac&gt;</strong></code>
  706. task after that.)</strong><br />-nowarn
  707. </td>
  708. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  709. valign="top" align="left">
  710. build.compiler.warnings
  711. </td>
  712. <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
  713. valign="top" align="left">
  714. true == not set
  715. </td>
  716. </tr>
  717. </table>
  718. <p>With Ant &gt;= 1.5, you can also use nested
  719. <code>&lt;compilerarg&gt;</code> elements with the
  720. <code>&lt;javac&gt;</code> task.</p>
  721. <p class="faq">
  722. <a name="shell-redirect-1"></a>
  723. How do I include a &lt; character in my command-line arguments?
  724. </p>
  725. <p>The short answer is "Use: <code>&amp;lt;</code>".</p>
  726. <p>The long answer is that this probably won't do what you
  727. want anyway (see <a href="#shell-redirect-2">the next
  728. section</a>).</p>
  729. <p class="faq">
  730. <a name="shell-redirect-2"></a>
  731. How do I redirect standard input or standard output
  732. in the <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code> task?
  733. </p>
  734. <p>Say you want to redirect the standard output stream of the
  735. <code>m4</code> command to write to a file, something
  736. like:</p>
  737. <pre class="code">
  738. shell-prompt&gt; m4 foo.m4 &gt; foo
  739. </pre>
  740. <p>and try to translate it into</p>
  741. <pre class="code">
  742. &lt;exec executable=&quot;m4&quot;&gt;
  743. &lt;arg value=&quot;foo.m4&quot;/&gt;
  744. &lt;arg value=&quot;&amp;gt;&quot;/&gt;
  745. &lt;arg value=&quot;foo&quot;/&gt;
  746. &lt;/exec&gt;
  747. </pre>
  748. <p>This will not do what you expect. The output redirection is
  749. performed by your shell, not the command itself, so this
  750. should read:</p>
  751. <pre class="code">
  752. &lt;exec executable=&quot;/bin/sh&quot;&gt;
  753. &lt;arg value=&quot;-c&quot; /&gt;
  754. &lt;arg value=&quot;m4 foo.m4 &amp;gt; foo&quot; /&gt;
  755. &lt;/exec&gt;
  756. </pre>
  757. <p>Note that you must use the <code>value</code> attribute of
  758. <code>&lt;arg&gt;</code> in the last element, in order to have
  759. the command passed as a single, quoted argument. Alternatively,
  760. you can use:</p>
  761. <pre class="code">
  762. &lt;exec executable=&quot;/bin/sh&quot;&gt;
  763. &lt;arg line='-c &quot;m4 foo.m4 &amp;gt; foo&quot;'/&gt;
  764. &lt;/exec&gt;
  765. </pre>
  766. <p>Note the double-quotes nested inside the single-quotes.</p>
  767. <p class="faq">
  768. <a name="batch-shell-execute"></a>
  769. How do I execute a batch file or shell script from Ant?
  770. </p>
  771. <p>On native Unix systems, you should be able to run shell scripts
  772. directly. On systems running a Unix-type shell (for example, Cygwin
  773. on Windows) execute the (command) shell instead - <code>cmd</code>
  774. for batch files, <code>sh</code> for shell scripts - then pass the
  775. batch file or shell script (plus any arguments to the script)
  776. as a single command, using the <code>/c</code> or
  777. <code>-c</code> switch, respectively. See
  778. <a href="#shell-redirect-2">the above section</a>
  779. for example <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code> tasks
  780. executing <code>sh</code>. For batch files, use something like:</p>
  781. <pre class="code">
  782. &lt;exec dir=&quot;.&quot; executable=&quot;cmd&quot; os=&quot;Windows NT&quot;&gt;
  783. &lt;arg line=&quot;/c test.bat&quot;/&gt;
  784. &lt;/exec&gt;
  785. </pre>
  786. <p class="faq">
  787. <a name="multi-conditions"></a>
  788. I want to execute a particular target only if
  789. multiple conditions are true.
  790. </p>
  791. <p>There are actually several answers to this question.</p>
  792. <p>If you have only one set and one unset property to test,
  793. you can specify both an <code>if</code> and an <code>unless</code>
  794. attribute for the target, and they will act as if they
  795. are "anded" together.</p>
  796. <p>If you are using a version of Ant 1.3 or earlier, the
  797. way to work with all other cases is to chain targets together
  798. to determine the specific state you want to test for.</p>
  799. <p>To see how this works, assume you have three properties:
  800. <code>prop1</code>, <code>prop2</code>, and <code>prop3</code>.
  801. You want to test that <code>prop1</code> and <code>prop2</code>
  802. are set, and that <code>prop3</code> is not. If the condition
  803. holds true you want to echo "yes".</p>
  804. <p>Here is the implementation in Ant 1.3 and earlier:</p>
  805. <pre class="code">
  806. &lt;target name=&quot;cond&quot; depends=&quot;cond-if&quot;/&gt;
  807. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-if&quot; if=&quot;prop1&quot;&gt;
  808. &lt;antcall target=&quot;cond-if-2&quot;/&gt;
  809. &lt;/target&gt;
  810. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-if-2&quot; if=&quot;prop2&quot;&gt;
  811. &lt;antcall target=&quot;cond-if-3&quot;/&gt;
  812. &lt;/target&gt;
  813. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-if-3&quot; unless=&quot;prop3&quot;&gt;
  814. &lt;echo message=&quot;yes&quot;/&gt;
  815. &lt;/target&gt;
  816. </pre>
  817. <p>Note: <code>&lt;antcall&gt;</code> tasks do <em>not</em> pass
  818. property changes back up to the environment they were called
  819. from, so you would'nt be able to, for example, set a
  820. <code>result</code> property in the <code>cond-if-3</code> target,
  821. then do
  822. <code>&lt;echo message="result is ${result}"/&gt;</code>
  823. in the <code>cond</code> target.</p>
  824. <p>Starting with Ant 1.4, you can use the
  825. <code>&lt;condition&gt;</code> task.</p>
  826. <pre class="code">
  827. &lt;target name=&quot;cond&quot; depends=&quot;cond-if,cond-else&quot;/&gt;
  828. &lt;target name=&quot;check-cond&quot;&gt;
  829. &lt;condition property=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
  830. &lt;and&gt;
  831. &lt;not&gt;
  832. &lt;equals arg1=&quot;${prop1}&quot; arg2=&quot;$${prop1}&quot; /&gt;
  833. &lt;/not&gt;
  834. &lt;not&gt;
  835. &lt;equals arg1=&quot;${prop2}&quot; arg2=&quot;$${prop2}&quot; /&gt;
  836. &lt;/not&gt;
  837. &lt;equals arg1=&quot;${prop3}&quot; arg2=&quot;$${prop3}&quot; /&gt;
  838. &lt;/and&gt;
  839. &lt;/condition&gt;
  840. &lt;/target&gt;
  841. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-if&quot; depends=&quot;check-cond&quot; if=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
  842. &lt;echo message=&quot;yes&quot;/&gt;
  843. &lt;/target&gt;
  844. &lt;target name=&quot;cond-else&quot; depends=&quot;check-cond&quot; unless=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
  845. &lt;echo message=&quot;no&quot;/&gt;
  846. &lt;/target&gt;
  847. </pre>
  848. <p>This version takes advantage of two things:</p>
  849. <ul>
  850. <li>If a property <code>a</code> has not been set,
  851. <code>${a}</code> will evaluate to <code>${a}</code>.</li>
  852. <li>To get a literal <code>$</code> in Ant, you have to
  853. escape it with another <code>$</code> - this will also break
  854. the special treatment of the <code>${</code> sequence.</li>
  855. </ul>
  856. <p>Because testing for a literal <code>${property}</code> string
  857. isn't all that readable or easy to understand,
  858. post-1.4.1 Ant introduces the <code>&lt;isset&gt;</code> element
  859. to the <code>&lt;condition&gt;</code> task.</p>
  860. <p>Here is the previous example done using
  861. <code>&lt;isset&gt;</code>:</p>
  862. <pre class="code">
  863. &lt;target name=&quot;check-cond&quot;&gt;
  864. &lt;condition property=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
  865. &lt;and&gt;
  866. &lt;isset property=&quot;prop1&quot;/&gt;
  867. &lt;isset property=&quot;prop2&quot;/&gt;
  868. &lt;not&gt;
  869. &lt;isset property=&quot;prop3&quot;/&gt;
  870. &lt;/not&gt;
  871. &lt;/and&gt;
  872. &lt;/condition&gt;
  873. &lt;/target&gt;
  874. </pre>
  875. <p>The last option is to use a scripting language to set the
  876. properties. This can be particularly handy when you need much
  877. finer control than the simple conditions shown here but, of
  878. course, comes with the overhead of adding JAR files to support
  879. the language, to say nothing of the added maintenance in requiring
  880. two languages to implement a single system. See the
  881. <a href="manual/OptionalTasks/script.html">
  882. <code>&lt;script&gt;</code> task documentation</a> for more
  883. details.</p>
  884. <p class="faq">
  885. <a name="encoding"></a>
  886. How can I include national characters like German
  887. umlauts in my build file?
  888. </p>
  889. <p>You need to tell the XML parser which character encoding
  890. your build file uses, this is done inside the <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xml-20001006#sec-prolog-dtd">XML
  891. declaration</a>.</p>
  892. <p>By default the parser assumes you are using the UTF-8
  893. encoding instead of your platform's default. For most Western
  894. European countries you should set the encoding to
  895. <code>ISO-8859-1</code>. To do so, make the very first line
  896. of you build file read like</p>
  897. <pre class="code">
  898. &lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot; encoding=&quot;ISO-8859-1&quot; ?&gt;
  899. </pre>
  900. <p class="faq">
  901. <a name="use-zip-instead-of-jar"></a>
  902. How do I use <code>jar</code>'s <code>M</code> switch?
  903. I don't want a MANIFEST.
  904. </p>
  905. <p>A JAR archive is a ZIP file, so if you don't want a
  906. MANIFEST you can simply use <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code>.</p>
  907. <p>If your file names contain national characters you should
  908. know that Sun's <code>jar</code> utility like Ant's
  909. <code>&lt;jar&gt;</code> uses UFT8 to encode their names while
  910. <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> uses your platforms default encoding.
  911. Use the encoding attribute of <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> if
  912. necessary.</p>
  913. <p class="faq">
  914. <a name="propertyvalue-as-name-for-property"></a>
  915. How can I do something like <code>&lt;property name="prop"
  916. value="${${anotherprop}}"/&gt;</code> (double expanding the property)?
  917. </p>
  918. <p>Without any external help you can not.</p>
  919. <p>With &lt;script/&gt;, which needs external libraries, you can do</p>
  920. <pre class="code">
  921. &lt;script language=&quot;javascript&quot;&gt;
  922. propname = project.getProperty(&quot;anotherprop&quot;);
  923. project.setNewProperty(&quot;prop&quot;, propname);
  924. &lt;/script&gt;
  925. </pre>
  926. <p>With AntContrib (external task library) you can do <code>
  927. &lt;propertycopy name="prop" from="${anotherprop}"/&gt;</code>.</p>
  928. <p>With Ant 1.6 you can simulate the AntContribs &lt;propertycopy&gt;
  929. and avoid the need of an external library:</p>
  930. <pre class="code">
  931. &lt;macrodef name=&quot;propertycopy&quot;&gt;
  932. &lt;attribute name=&quot;name&quot;/&gt;
  933. &lt;attribute name=&quot;from&quot;/&gt;
  934. &lt;sequential&gt;
  935. &lt;property name=&quot;@{name}&quot; value=&quot;${@{from}}&quot;/&gt;
  936. &lt;/sequential&gt;
  937. &lt;/macrodef&gt;
  938. </pre>
  939. <p class="faq">
  940. <a name="always-recompiles"></a>
  941. Why does Ant always recompile all my Java files?
  942. </p>
  943. <p>In order to find out which files should be compiled, Ant
  944. compares the timestamps of the source files to those of the
  945. resulting <code>.class</code> files. Opening all source files
  946. to find out which package they belong to would be very
  947. inefficient. Instead, Ant expects you to place your
  948. source files in a directory hierarchy that mirrors your
  949. package hierarchy and to point Ant to the root of this
  950. directory tree with the <code>srcdir</code> attribute.</p>
  951. <p>Say you have <code>&lt;javac srcdir="src"
  952. destdir="dest"/&gt;</code>. If Ant finds a file
  953. <code>src/a/b/C.java</code>, it expects it to be in package
  954. <code>a.b</code> so that the resulting <code>.class</code>
  955. file is going to be <code>dest/a/b/C.class</code>.</p>
  956. <p>If your source-tree directory structure does not match your
  957. package structure, Ant's heuristic won't work, and
  958. it will recompile classes that are up-to-date. Ant is not the
  959. only tool that expects a source-tree layout like this.</p>
  960. <p>If you have Java source files that aren't declared to
  961. be part of any package, you can still use the <code>&lt;javac&gt;</code>
  962. task to compile these files correctly - just set the
  963. <code>srcdir</code> and <code>destdir</code> attributes to
  964. the actual directory the source
  965. files live in and the directory the class files should go into,
  966. respectively.</p>
  967. <p class="faq">
  968. <a name="defaultexcludes"></a>
  969. I've used a <code>&lt;delete&gt;</code> task to
  970. delete unwanted SourceSafe control files (CVS files, editor
  971. backup files, etc.), but it doesn't seem to work; the files
  972. never get deleted. What's wrong?
  973. </p>
  974. <p>This is probably happening because, by default, Ant excludes
  975. SourceSafe control files (<code>vssver.scc</code>) and certain other
  976. files from FileSets.</p>
  977. <p>Here's what you probably did:</p>
  978. <pre class="code">
  979. &lt;delete&gt;
  980. &lt;fileset dir=&quot;${build.src}&quot; includes=&quot;**/vssver.scc&quot;/&gt;
  981. &lt;/delete&gt;
  982. </pre>
  983. <p>You need to switch off the default exclusions,
  984. and it will work:</p>
  985. <pre class="code">
  986. &lt;delete&gt;
  987. &lt;fileset dir=&quot;${build.src}&quot; includes=&quot;**/vssver.scc&quot;
  988. defaultexcludes=&quot;no&quot;/&gt;
  989. &lt;/delete&gt;
  990. </pre>
  991. <p>For a complete listing of the patterns that are excluded
  992. by default, see <a href="manual/dirtasks.html#defaultexcludes">the user
  993. manual</a>.</p>
  994. <p class="faq">
  995. <a name="stop-dependency"></a>
  996. I have a target I want to skip if a property is set,
  997. so I have <code>unless="property"</code> as an attribute
  998. of the target, but all the targets this target
  999. depends on are still executed. Why?
  1000. </p>
  1001. <p>The list of dependencies is generated by Ant before any of the
  1002. targets are run. This allows dependent targets, such as an
  1003. <code>init</code> target, to set properties that can control the
  1004. execution of the targets higher in the dependency graph. This
  1005. is a good thing.</p>
  1006. <p>However, when your dependencies break down the
  1007. higher-level task
  1008. into several smaller steps, this behaviour becomes
  1009. counter-intuitive. There are a couple of solutions available:
  1010. </p>
  1011. <ol>
  1012. <li>Put the same condition on each of the dependent targets.</li>
  1013. <li>Execute the steps using <code>&lt;antcall&gt;</code>,
  1014. instead of specifying them inside the <code>depends</code>
  1015. attribute.</li>
  1016. </ol>
  1017. <p class="faq">
  1018. <a name="include-order"></a>
  1019. In my <code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>, I've put in an
  1020. <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> of all files followed by an
  1021. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> of just the files I want, but it
  1022. isn't giving me any files at all. What's wrong?
  1023. </p>
  1024. <p>The order of the <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> and
  1025. <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> tags within a <code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>
  1026. is ignored when the FileSet is created. Instead, all of the
  1027. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> elements are processed together,
  1028. followed by all of the <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code>
  1029. elements. This means that the <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code>
  1030. elements only apply to the file list produced by the
  1031. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> elements.</p>
  1032. <p>To get the files you want, focus on just the
  1033. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> patterns that would be necessary
  1034. to get them. If you find you need to trim the list that the
  1035. <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> elements produce, then use
  1036. <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> elements.</p>
  1037. <p class="faq">
  1038. <a name="properties-not-trimmed"></a>
  1039. <code>ant</code> failed to build my program via javac
  1040. even when I put the needed jars in an external
  1041. <code>build.properties</code> file and reference them by
  1042. <code>pathelement</code> or <code>classpath refid</code>.
  1043. </p>
  1044. <p>When <code>ant</code> loads properties from an external
  1045. file it dosn't touch the value of properties, trailing blanks
  1046. will not be trimmed for example.</p>
  1047. <p>If the value represents a file path, like a jar needed to
  1048. compile, the task which requires the value, javac for example
  1049. would fail to compile since it can't find the file due to
  1050. trailing spaces.</p>
  1051. <p class="faq">
  1052. <a name="winzip-lies"></a>
  1053. Ant creates WAR files with a lower-case
  1054. <code>web-inf</code> or JAR files with a lower-case
  1055. <code>meta-inf</code> directory.
  1056. </p>
  1057. <p>No it doesn't.</p>
  1058. <p>You may have seen these lower-case directory names in
  1059. WinZIP, but WinZIP is trying to be helpful (and fails). If
  1060. WinZIP encounters a filename that is all upper-case, it
  1061. assumes it has come from an old DOS box and changes the case to
  1062. all lower-case for you.</p>
  1063. <p>If you extract (or just check) the archive with jar, you
  1064. will see that the names have the correct case.</p>
  1065. <p>With WinZIP (version 8.1 at least), this can be corrected in the
  1066. configuration. In the Options/Configuration menu, in the View tab, General
  1067. section, check the "Allow all upper case files names" box. The META-INF and
  1068. WEB-INF will look correct.</p>
  1069. <p class="faq">
  1070. <a name="integration"></a>
  1071. Is Ant supported by my IDE/Editor?
  1072. </p>
  1073. <p>See the <a href="external.html#IDE and Editor Integration">section
  1074. on IDE integration</a> on our External Tools and Tasks page.</p>
  1075. <p class="faq">
  1076. <a name="emacs-mode"></a>
  1077. Why doesn't (X)Emacs/vi/MacOS X's project builder
  1078. correctly parse the error messages generated by Ant?
  1079. </p>
  1080. <p>Ant adds a "banner" with the name of the current
  1081. task in front of all logging messages - and there are no built-in
  1082. regular expressions in your editor that would account for
  1083. this.</p>
  1084. <p>You can disable this banner by invoking Ant with the
  1085. <code>-emacs</code> switch. To make Ant autodetect
  1086. Emacs' compile mode, put this into your
  1087. <code>.antrc</code> (contributed by Ville Skytt).</p>
  1088. <pre class="code">
  1089. # Detect (X)Emacs compile mode
  1090. if [ &quot;$EMACS&quot; = &quot;t&quot; ] ; then
  1091. ANT_ARGS=&quot;$ANT_ARGS -emacs&quot;
  1092. ANT_OPTS=&quot;$ANT_OPTS -Dbuild.compiler.emacs=true&quot;
  1093. fi
  1094. </pre>
  1095. <p>Alternatively, you can add the following snippet to your
  1096. <code>.emacs</code> to make Emacs understand Ant's
  1097. output.</p>
  1098. <pre class="code">
  1099. (require 'compile)
  1100. (setq compilation-error-regexp-alist
  1101. (append (list
  1102. ;; works for jikes
  1103. '(&quot;^\\s-*\\[[^]]*\\]\\s-*\\(.+\\):\\([0-9]+\\):\\([0-9]+\\):[0-9]+:[0-9]+:&quot; 1 2 3)
  1104. ;; works for javac
  1105. '(&quot;^\\s-*\\[[^]]*\\]\\s-*\\(.+\\):\\([0-9]+\\):&quot; 1 2))
  1106. compilation-error-regexp-alist))
  1107. </pre>
  1108. <p>Yet another alternative that preserves most of Ant's
  1109. formatting is to pipe Ant's output through the following Perl
  1110. script by Dirk-Willem van Gulik:</p>
  1111. <pre class="code">
  1112. #!/usr/bin/perl
  1113. #
  1114. # May 2001 dirkx@apache.org - remove any
  1115. # [foo] lines from the output; keeping
  1116. # spacing more or less there.
  1117. #
  1118. $|=1;
  1119. while(&lt;STDIN&gt;) {
  1120. if (s/^(\s+)\[(\w+)\]//) {
  1121. if ($2 ne $last) {
  1122. print &quot;$1\[$2\]&quot;;
  1123. $s = ' ' x length($2);
  1124. } else {
  1125. print &quot;$1 $s &quot;;
  1126. };
  1127. $last = $2;
  1128. };
  1129. print;
  1130. };
  1131. </pre>
  1132. <p class="faq">
  1133. <a name="dtd"></a>
  1134. Is there a DTD that I can use to validate my build
  1135. files?
  1136. </p>
  1137. <p>An incomplete DTD can be created by the
  1138. <code>&lt;antstructure&gt;</code> task - but this one
  1139. has a few problems:</p>
  1140. <ul>
  1141. <li>It doesn't know about required attributes. Only
  1142. manual tweaking of this file can help here.</li>
  1143. <li>It is not complete - if you add new tasks via
  1144. <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> it won't know about it. See
  1145. <a href="http://www.sdv.fr/pages/casa/html/ant-dtd.en.html">this
  1146. page</a> by Michel Casabianca for a solution to this
  1147. problem. Note that the DTD you can download at this page
  1148. is based on Ant 0.3.1.</li>
  1149. <li>It may even be an invalid DTD. As Ant allows tasks
  1150. writers to define arbitrary elements, name collisions will
  1151. happen quite frequently - if your version of Ant contains
  1152. the optional <code>&lt;test&gt;</code> and
  1153. <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> tasks, there are two XML
  1154. elements named <code>test</code> (the task and the nested child
  1155. element of <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code>) with different attribute
  1156. lists. This problem cannot be solved; DTDs don't give a
  1157. syntax rich enough to support this.</li>
  1158. </ul>
  1159. <p class="faq">
  1160. <a name="xml-entity-include"></a>
  1161. How do I include an XML snippet in my build file?
  1162. </p>
  1163. <p>You can use XML's way of including external files and let
  1164. the parser do the job for Ant:</p>
  1165. <pre class="code">
  1166. &lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot;?&gt;
  1167. &lt;!DOCTYPE project [
  1168. &lt;!ENTITY common SYSTEM &quot;file:./common.xml&quot;&gt;
  1169. ]&gt;
  1170. &lt;project name=&quot;test&quot; default=&quot;test&quot; basedir=&quot;.&quot;&gt;
  1171. &lt;target name=&quot;setup&quot;&gt;
  1172. ...
  1173. &lt;/target&gt;
  1174. &amp;common;
  1175. ...
  1176. &lt;/project&gt;
  1177. </pre>
  1178. <p>will literally include the contents of <code>common.xml</code> where
  1179. you've placed the <code>&amp;common;</code> entity.</p>
  1180. <p>In combination with a DTD, this would look like this:</p>
  1181. <pre class="code">
  1182. &lt;!DOCTYPE project PUBLIC &quot;-//ANT//DTD project//EN&quot; &quot;file:./ant.dtd&quot; [
  1183. &lt;!ENTITY include SYSTEM &quot;file:./header.xml&quot;&gt;
  1184. ]&gt;
  1185. </pre>
  1186. <p>Starting with Ant 1.6, there is a new
  1187. <code>&lt;import&gt;</code> task that can (also) be used to
  1188. include build file fragments. Unlike the snippets used with
  1189. entity includes, the referenced files have to be complete Ant
  1190. build files, though.</p>
  1191. <p>The example above would become:</p>
  1192. <pre class="code">
  1193. &lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot;?&gt;
  1194. &lt;project name=&quot;test&quot; default=&quot;test&quot; basedir=&quot;.&quot;&gt;
  1195. &lt;target name=&quot;setup&quot;&gt;
  1196. ...
  1197. &lt;/target&gt;
  1198. &lt;import file=&quot;./common.xml&quot;/&gt;
  1199. ...
  1200. &lt;/project&gt;
  1201. </pre>
  1202. <p>Unlike entity includes, <code>&lt;import&gt;</code> will
  1203. let you use Ant properties in the file name.</p>
  1204. <p class="faq">
  1205. <a name="mail-logger"></a>
  1206. How do I send an email with the result of my build
  1207. process?
  1208. </p>
  1209. <p>If you are using a nightly build of Ant 1.5 after
  1210. 2001-12-14, you can use the built-in MailLogger:</p>
  1211. <pre class="code">
  1212. ant -logger org.apache.tools.ant.listener.MailLogger
  1213. </pre>
  1214. <p>See the <a href="http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs/~checkout~/ant/docs/manual/listeners.html?content-type=text/html">Listeners
  1215. &amp; Loggers</a> documentation for details on the properties
  1216. required.</p>
  1217. <p>For older versions of Ant, you can use a custom
  1218. BuildListener that sends out an email
  1219. in the buildFinished() method. Will Glozer
  1220. &lt;will.glozer@jda.com&gt; has written such a listener based
  1221. on <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/javamail/">JavaMail</a>.
  1222. The source is:</p>
  1223. <pre class="code">
  1224. import java.io.*;
  1225. import java.util.*;
  1226. import javax.mail.*;
  1227. import javax.mail.internet.*;
  1228. import org.apache.tools.ant.*;
  1229. /**
  1230. * A simple listener that waits for a build to finish and sends an email
  1231. * of the results. The settings are stored in &quot;monitor.properties&quot; and
  1232. * are fairly self explanatory.
  1233. *
  1234. * @author Will Glozer
  1235. * @version 1.05a 09/06/2000
  1236. */
  1237. public class BuildMonitor implements BuildListener {
  1238. protected Properties props;
  1239. /**
  1240. * Create a new BuildMonitor.
  1241. */
  1242. public BuildMonitor() throws Exception {
  1243. props = new Properties();
  1244. InputStream is = getClass().getResourceAsStream(&quot;monitor.properties&quot;);
  1245. props.load(is);
  1246. is.close();
  1247. }
  1248. public void buildStarted(BuildEvent e) {
  1249. }
  1250. /**
  1251. * Determine the status of the build and the actions to follow, now that
  1252. * the build has completed.
  1253. *
  1254. * @param e Event describing the build status.
  1255. */
  1256. public void buildFinished(BuildEvent e) {
  1257. Throwable th = e.getException();
  1258. String status = (th != null) ? &quot;failed&quot; : &quot;succeeded&quot;;
  1259. try {
  1260. String key = &quot;build.&quot; + status;
  1261. if (props.getProperty(key + &quot;.notify&quot;).equalsIgnoreCase(&quot;false&quot;)) {
  1262. return;
  1263. }
  1264. Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, null);
  1265. MimeMessage message = new MimeMessage(session);
  1266. message.addRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO, parseAddresses(
  1267. props.getProperty(key + &quot;.email.to&quot;)));
  1268. message.setSubject(props.getProperty(key + &quot;.email.subject&quot;));
  1269. BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(
  1270. props.getProperty(&quot;build.log&quot;)));
  1271. StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
  1272. String line = br.readLine();
  1273. while (line != null) {
  1274. sw.write(line);
  1275. sw.write(&quot;\n&quot;);
  1276. line = br.readLine();
  1277. }
  1278. br.close();
  1279. message.setText(sw.toString(), &quot;UTF-8&quot;);
  1280. sw.close();
  1281. Transport transport = session.getTransport();
  1282. transport.connect();
  1283. transport.send(message);
  1284. transport.close();
  1285. } catch (Exception ex) {
  1286. System.out.println(&quot;BuildMonitor failed to send email!&quot;);
  1287. ex.printStackTrace();
  1288. }
  1289. }
  1290. /**
  1291. * Parse a comma separated list of internet email addresses.
  1292. *
  1293. * @param s The list of addresses.
  1294. * @return Array of Addresses.
  1295. */
  1296. protected Address[] parseAddresses(String s) throws Exception {
  1297. StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(s, &quot;,&quot;);
  1298. Address[] addrs = new Address[st.countTokens()];
  1299. for (int i = 0; i &lt; addrs.length; i++) {
  1300. addrs[i] = new InternetAddress(st.nextToken());
  1301. }
  1302. return addrs;
  1303. }
  1304. public void messageLogged(BuildEvent e) {
  1305. }
  1306. public void targetStarted(BuildEvent e) {
  1307. }
  1308. public void targetFinished(BuildEvent e) {
  1309. }
  1310. public void taskStarted(BuildEvent e) {
  1311. }
  1312. public void taskFinished(BuildEvent e) {
  1313. }
  1314. }
  1315. </pre>
  1316. <p>With a <code>monitor.properties</code> like this:</p>
  1317. <pre class="code">
  1318. # configuration for build monitor
  1319. mail.transport.protocol=smtp
  1320. mail.smtp.host=&lt;host&gt;
  1321. mail.from=Will Glozer &lt;will.glozer@jda.com&gt;
  1322. build.log=build.log
  1323. build.failed.notify=true
  1324. build.failed.email.to=will.glozer@jda.com
  1325. build.failed.email.subject=Nightly build failed!
  1326. build.succeeded.notify=true
  1327. build.succeeded.email.to=will.glozer@jda.com
  1328. build.succeeded.email.subject=Nightly build succeeded!
  1329. </pre>
  1330. <p><code>monitor.properties</code> should be placed right next
  1331. to your compiled <code>BuildMonitor.class</code>. To use it,
  1332. invoke Ant like:</p>
  1333. <pre class="code">
  1334. ant -listener BuildMonitor -logfile build.log
  1335. </pre>
  1336. <p>Make sure that <code>mail.jar</code> from JavaMail and
  1337. <code>activation.jar</code> from the
  1338. <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/javabeans/glasgow/jaf.html">Java
  1339. Beans Activation Framework</a> are in your <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
  1340. <p class="faq">
  1341. <a name="listener-properties"></a>
  1342. How do I get at the properties that Ant was running
  1343. with from inside BuildListener?
  1344. </p>
  1345. <p>You can get at a hashtable with all the properties that Ant
  1346. has been using through the BuildEvent parameter. For
  1347. example:</p>
  1348. <pre class="code">
  1349. public void buildFinished(BuildEvent e) {
  1350. Hashtable table = e.getProject().getProperties();
  1351. String buildpath = (String)table.get(&quot;build.path&quot;);
  1352. ...
  1353. }
  1354. </pre>
  1355. <p>This is more accurate than just reading the same property
  1356. files that your project does, since it will give the correct
  1357. results for properties that were specified on the Ant command line.</p>
  1358. <p class="faq">
  1359. <a name="remove-cr"></a>
  1360. &lt;chmod&gt; or &lt;exec&gt; doesn't work in Ant
  1361. 1.3 on Unix
  1362. </p>
  1363. <p>The <code>antRun</code> script in <code>ANT_HOME/bin</code>
  1364. has DOS instead of Unix line endings; you must remove the
  1365. carriage-return characters from this file. This can be done by
  1366. using Ant's <code>&lt;fixcrlf&gt;</code> task
  1367. or something like:</p>
  1368. <pre class="code">
  1369. tr -d '\r' &lt; $ANT_HOME/bin/antRun &gt; /tmp/foo
  1370. mv /tmp/foo $ANT_HOME/bin/antRun
  1371. </pre>
  1372. <p class="faq">
  1373. <a name="javadoc-cannot-execute"></a>
  1374. JavaDoc failed: java.io.IOException: javadoc: cannot execute
  1375. </p>
  1376. <p>There is a bug in the Solaris reference implementation of
  1377. the JDK (see <a href="http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4230399.html">http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/bugParade/bugs/4230399.html</a>).
  1378. This also appears to be true under Linux. Moving the JDK to
  1379. the front of the PATH fixes the problem.</p>
  1380. <p class="faq">
  1381. <a name="delegating-classloader"></a>
  1382. &lt;style&gt; or &lt;junit&gt; ignores my
  1383. &lt;classpath&gt;
  1384. </p>
  1385. <p>These tasks don't ignore your classpath setting, you
  1386. are facing a common problem with delegating classloaders.</p>
  1387. <p>First of all let's state that Ant adds all
  1388. <code>.jar</code> files from <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code> to
  1389. <code>CLASSPATH</code>, therefore "in
  1390. <code>CLASSPATH</code>" shall mean "either in your
  1391. <code>CLASSPATH</code> environment variable or
  1392. <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code>" for the rest of this
  1393. answer.</p>
  1394. <p>Technically the sentence above isn't true for Ant 1.6
  1395. and later anymore, but the result is the same. For the sake
  1396. of this discussion, <code>CLASSPATH</code> and
  1397. <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code> are identical.</p>
  1398. <p>This question collects a common type of problem: A task
  1399. needs an external library and it has a nested classpath
  1400. element so that you can point it to this external library, but
  1401. that doesn't work unless you put the external library into the
  1402. <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
  1403. <p>The root of the problem is that the class that needs the
  1404. external library is on the <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
  1405. <p>When you specify a nested <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> in
  1406. Ant, Ant creates a new class loader that uses the path you
  1407. have specified. It then tries to load additional classes from
  1408. this classloader.</p>
  1409. <p>In most cases - for example the two cases above - Ant
  1410. doesn't load the external library directly, it is the loaded
  1411. class that does so.</p>
  1412. <p>In the case of <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> it is the task
  1413. implementation itself and in the case of
  1414. <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> it is the implementation of the
  1415. <code>org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.XSLTLiaison</code>
  1416. class.</p>
  1417. <p>Ant's class loader implementation uses Java's
  1418. delegation model, see <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.2/docs/api/java/lang/ClassLoader.html">http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.2/docs/api/java/lang/ClassLoader.html</a>
  1419. the paragraph</p>
  1420. <blockquote>The <code>ClassLoader</code> class uses a
  1421. delegation model to search for classes and resources. Each
  1422. instance of <code>ClassLoader</code> has an associated parent
  1423. class loader. When called upon to find a class or resource, a
  1424. <code>ClassLoader</code> instance will delegate the search for
  1425. the class or resource to its parent class loader before
  1426. attempting to find the class or resource itself. The virtual
  1427. machine's built-in class loader, called the bootstrap
  1428. class loader, does not itself have a parent but may serve as
  1429. the parent of a <code>ClassLoader</code>
  1430. instance.</blockquote>
  1431. <p>This means, Ant's class loader will consult the
  1432. bootstrap class loader first, which tries to load classes from
  1433. <code>CLASSPATH</code>. The bootstrap class loader
  1434. doesn't know anything about Ant's class loader or
  1435. even the path you have specified.</p>
  1436. <p>If the bootstrap class loader can load the class Ant has
  1437. asked it to load, this class will try to load the external
  1438. library from <code>CLASSPATH</code> as well - it doesn't
  1439. know anything else - and will not find it unless the library
  1440. is in <code>CLASSPATH</code> as well.</p>
  1441. <p>To solve this, you have two major options:</p>
  1442. <ol>
  1443. <li>put all external libraries you need in
  1444. <code>CLASSPATH</code> as well this is not what you want,
  1445. otherwise you wouldn't have found this FAQ entry.</li>
  1446. <li>remove the class that loads the external library from
  1447. the <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</li>
  1448. </ol>
  1449. <p><strong>Using The Second Option with Ant 1.5.4 and
  1450. Earlier:</strong></p>
  1451. <p>The easiest way to do this is to remove
  1452. <code>optional.jar</code> from <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code>. If
  1453. you do so, you will have to <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> all
  1454. optional tasks and use nested <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code>
  1455. elements in the <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> tasks that point
  1456. to the new location of <code>optional.jar</code>. Also,
  1457. don't forget to add the new location of
  1458. <code>optional.jar</code> to the
  1459. <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> of your
  1460. <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> or <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code>
  1461. task.</p>
  1462. <p>If you want to avoid to <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> all
  1463. optional tasks you need, the only other option is to remove
  1464. the classes that should not be loaded via the bootstrap class
  1465. loader from <code>optional.jar</code> and put them into a
  1466. separate archive. Add this separate archive to the
  1467. <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> of your
  1468. <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> or <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> task
  1469. - and make sure the separate archive is not in
  1470. <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
  1471. <p>In the case of <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> you'd have
  1472. to remove all classes that are in the
  1473. <code>org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/junit</code>
  1474. directory, in the <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> case it is one of
  1475. the <code>*Liaison</code> classes in
  1476. <code>org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional</code>.</p>
  1477. <p><strong>Using The Second Option with Ant 1.6 and
  1478. later:</strong></p>
  1479. <p>In Ant 1.6 <code>optional.jar</code> has been split into
  1480. multiple jars, each one containing classes with the same
  1481. dependencies on external libraries. You can move the
  1482. "offending" jar out of ANT_HOME/lib. For the
  1483. <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> task it would be
  1484. <code>ant-junit.jar</code> and for <code>&lt;style&gt;</code>
  1485. it would be <code>ant-trax.jar</code>,
  1486. <code>ant-xalan1.jar</code> or <code>ant-xslp.jar</code> -
  1487. depending on the processor you use.</p>
  1488. <p>If you use the option to break up <code>optional.jar</code>
  1489. for <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> or remove
  1490. <code>ant-junit.jar</code>, you still have to use a
  1491. <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> with a nested
  1492. <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> to define the junit task.</p>
  1493. <p class="faq">
  1494. <a name="winxp-jdk14-ant14"></a>
  1495. When running Ant 1.4 on Windows XP and JDK 1.4, I get
  1496. various errors when trying to <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code>, fork
  1497. <code>&lt;java&gt;</code> or access environment
  1498. variables.
  1499. </p>
  1500. <p>Ant &lt; 1.5 doesn't recognize Windows XP as a flavor
  1501. of Windows that runs <code>CMD.EXE</code> instead of
  1502. <code>COMMAND.COM</code>. JDK 1.3 will tell Ant that Windows
  1503. XP is Windows 2000 so the problem doesn't show up
  1504. there.</p>
  1505. <p>Apart from upgrading to Ant 1.5 or better, setting the
  1506. environment variable <code>ANT_OPTS</code> to
  1507. <code>-Dos.name=Windows_NT</code> prior to invoking Ant has
  1508. been confirmed as a workaround.</p>
  1509. <p class="faq">
  1510. <a name="1.5-cygwin-sh"></a>
  1511. The <code>ant</code> wrapper script of Ant 1.5 fails
  1512. for Cygwin if <code>ANT_HOME</code> is set to a Windows style
  1513. path.
  1514. </p>
  1515. <p>This problem has been reported only hours after Ant 1.5 has
  1516. been released, see <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10664">Bug
  1517. 10664</a> and all its duplicates.</p>
  1518. <p>A fixed version of the wrapper script can be found <a href="http://ant.apache.org/old-releases/v1.5/errata/">here</a>.
  1519. Simply replace your script with this version.</p>
  1520. <p class="faq">
  1521. <a name="1.5.2-zip-broken"></a>
  1522. <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> is broken in Ant 1.5.2.
  1523. </p>
  1524. <p>Yes, it is.</p>
  1525. <p>The problem reported by most people - see <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17648">Bug
  1526. 17648</a> and all its duplicates - is that Ant creates
  1527. archives that a partially unreadable by WinZIP. Luckily
  1528. <code>jar</code> deals with the archives and so the generated
  1529. jars/wars/ears will most likely work for you anyway.</p>
  1530. <p>There are additional problems, see bugs <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17780">Bug
  1531. 17780</a>, <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17871">Bug
  1532. 17871</a> and <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=18403">Bug
  1533. 18403</a>. All of them are supposed to be fixed with Ant
  1534. 1.5.3 (and only 18403 should exist in 1.5.3beta1).</p>
  1535. <p class="faq">
  1536. <a name="unknownelement.taskcontainer"></a>
  1537. Why do my custom task containers see Unknown Elements in Ant 1.6
  1538. - they worked in Ant 1.5?
  1539. </p>
  1540. <p>
  1541. The objects added in TaskContainer.addTask(Task task)
  1542. have changed from Tasks to UnknownElements.
  1543. </p>
  1544. <p>
  1545. There was a number of valid reasons for this change. But the backward
  1546. compatibility problems were not noticed until after Ant 1.6.0 was
  1547. released.
  1548. </p>
  1549. <p>
  1550. Your container class will need to be modified to check if the Task
  1551. is an UnknownElement and call perform on it to
  1552. convert it to a Task and to execute it.
  1553. (see apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.Sequential)
  1554. </p>
  1555. <p>
  1556. If you want to do more processing on the task,
  1557. you need to use the techniques in apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.Antlib#execute()
  1558. This does make use of one 1.6 method call (UE#getRealObject()),
  1559. you need to use UE#getTask() instead - this will
  1560. return null for non tasks (types like fileset id=x).
  1561. </p>
  1562. <p>
  1563. So.. iterate over the tasks, if they are UEs, convert them to
  1564. tasks, using UE#maybeConfigure and UE#getTask()
  1565. </p>
  1566. <pre class="code">
  1567. for (Iterator i = tasks.iterator(); i.hasNext();) {
  1568. Task t = (Task) i.next();
  1569. if (t instanceof UnknownElement) {
  1570. ((UnknownElement) t).maybeConfigure();
  1571. t = ((UnknownElement) t).getTask();
  1572. if (t == null) {
  1573. continue;
  1574. }
  1575. }
  1576. // .... original Custom code
  1577. }
  1578. </pre>
  1579. <p>
  1580. This approach should work for ant1.5 and ant1.6.
  1581. </p>
  1582. <p class="faq">
  1583. <a name="java.exception.stacktrace"></a>
  1584. The program I run via &lt;java&gt; throws an exception but I
  1585. can't seem to get the full stack trace.
  1586. </p>
  1587. <p>This is a know bug that has been fixed after the release of
  1588. Ant 1.6.1.</p>
  1589. <p>As a workaround, run your &lt;java&gt; task with
  1590. <code>fork="true"</code> and Ant will display the full
  1591. trace.</p>
  1592. <p class="faq">
  1593. <a name="junit-no-runtime-xml"></a>
  1594. Using format="xml", &lt;junit&gt; fails with a
  1595. <code>NoClassDefFoundError</code> if forked.
  1596. </p>
  1597. <p>The XML formatter needs the <a href="http://www.w3.org/DOM/">DOM classes</a> to work. If you
  1598. are using JDK 1.4 or later they are included with your Java
  1599. Runtime and this problem won't occur. If you are running JDK
  1600. 1.3 or earlier, the DOM classes have to be on your
  1601. &lt;junit&gt; task's &lt;classpath&gt;.</p>
  1602. <p>Prior to Ant 1.6.0 Ant would include the DOM classes from
  1603. the XML parser that is used by Ant itself if you set the
  1604. includeAntRuntime attribute to true (the default). With Ant
  1605. 1.6.0 this has been changed as this behavior made it
  1606. impossible to use a different XML parser in your tests.</p>
  1607. <p>This means that you have to take care of the DOM classes
  1608. explicitly starting with Ant 1.6.0. If you don't need to set
  1609. up a different XML parser for your tests, the easiest solution
  1610. is to add</p>
  1611. <pre class="code">
  1612. &lt;pathelement path=&quot;${ant.home}/lib/xml-apis.jar:${ant.home}/lib/xercesImpl.jar&quot;/&gt;
  1613. </pre>
  1614. <p>to your task's &lt;classpath&gt;.</p>
  1615. <p class="faq">
  1616. <a name="xalan-jdk1.5"></a>
  1617. <code>&lt;junitreport&gt;</code> doesn't work with JDK 1.5 but
  1618. worked fine with JDK 1.4.
  1619. </p>
  1620. <p>While JDK 1.4.x contains a version of Xalan-J 2, JDK 1.5
  1621. (and later?) have <a href="http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/compatibility.html#4959783">moved
  1622. to XSLTC</a>. Since this task uses Xalan's redirect
  1623. extensions for its internal stylesheet, Ant doesn't support
  1624. XSLTC yet. This means that you have to install <a href="http://xml.apache.org/xalan-j/">Xalan-J 2</a> in order
  1625. to use this task with JDK 1.5.</p>
  1626. <p>If you want to follow progress on this, <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=27541">here</a>
  1627. is the relevant bug report.</p>
  1628. </div>
  1629. </div>
  1630. <p class="copyright">
  1631. Copyright &copy; 2000-2004&nbsp;The Apache Software Foundation. All rights reserved.
  1632. <script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript"><!--
  1633. document.write(" - "+"Last Published: " + document.lastModified);
  1634. // -->
  1635. </script>
  1636. </p>
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