Ant : The Definitive Guide

by Tilly, Jesse; Burke, Eric M.

• ISBN13: 9780596001841
• ISBN10: 0596001843
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-04-01
• Publisher: Oreilly & Associates Inc

Summary

In 1998 one programmer changed the world of Java. Frustrated by his efforts to create a cross-platform build of Tomcat using the build tools of the day (GNU Make, batch files, and shell scripts), James Duncan Davidson threw together his own build utility on an airplane flight from Europe to the U.S. Named Ant because it was a little thing that could build big things, James's quick-and-dirty solution to his own problem of creating a cross-platform build has evolved into what is perhaps the most widely used build management tool in Java environments.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Preface	xiii
Ant Jumpstart	1	(9)
Files and Directories	1	(2)
The Ant Buildfile	3	(2)
Running Ant	5	(2)
Ant Command-Line Reference	7	(1)
Buildfile Outline	8	(1)
Learning More	9	(1)
Installation and Configuration	10	(11)
The Distribution	10	(1)
Installation	11	(7)
Configuration	18	(3)
The Buildfile	21	(34)
Why XML?	21	(1)
Ant Building Blocks	22	(5)
An Example Project and Buildfile	27	(13)
The Buildfile Execution Process	40	(10)
AINASL: Ant Is Not a Scripting Language	50	(3)
Buildfile Authoring Issues	53	(2)
Ant DataTypes	55	(21)
DataTypes Defined	56	(1)
XML Attribute Conventions	56	(2)
Argument DataType	58	(3)
Environment DataType	61	(2)
FileList DataType	63	(1)
FileSet DataType	64	(3)
PatternSet DataType	67	(1)
FilterSet DataType	68	(2)
Path DataType	70	(2)
Mapper DataType	72	(4)
User-Written Tasks	76	(32)
The Need for Custom Tasks	76	(2)
Ant's Task Model	78	(8)
The Task Life Cycle	86	(3)
An Example Through Analysis: The jar Task	89	(15)
Miscellaneous Task Topics	104	(4)
User-Written Listeners	108	(9)
The BuildEvent Class	109	(1)
The BuildListener Interface	110	(2)
An Example: XmlLogger	112	(3)
The Parallel Problem	115	(2)
Core Tasks	117	(71)
Task Summary	117	(2)
Common Types and Attributes	119	(2)
Project and Target	121	(2)
Core Task Reference	123	(65)
Optional Tasks	188	(61)
Task Summary	188	(2)
Optional Task Reference	190	(59)
A. The Future of Ant	249	(3)
B. Ant Solutions	252	(11)
Index	263