Reusable Ant build file

Hello,

I’m back from some vacations.

The topic I want to discuss this time is the use of ant build files. I don’t like the build files generated by netbeans. Why ? Working in a professional environment, you have to master all your building chain : know what happens in the continuous integration process, know exactly what you deliver to your production team (in a professional environment developers package the release and deliver it to production team; only production authorized team deploy the package on production systems), ….

So I don’t like the maze of ant files generated by Netbeans. Here is the reusable ant file I used. you can rapidly use it back in a new project with fex modification (mainly the project name).

This file contains targets for :

compilation (at least what a build file must do)
generate the javadoc (documentation is important, don’t forget it)
creating the distribution jar file
run target to launch your application, based on the generated jar (this one is an example you’ll have to modify the command line parameters)
test your application (with junit), which is important to automate in the case of continuous integration
generation of code with jaxb : this can be suppressed (in this case, you can suppress the corresponding mkdir task in prebuild target.

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<project name="phonebook" basedir="." default="main">
<property name="dist.dir" value="dist"/>
<property name="src.dir" value="src"/>
<property name="src-generated.dir" value="generated-src"/>
<property name="build.dir" value="build"/>
<property name="lib.dir" value="lib"/>
<property name="javadoc.dir" value="${dist.dir}/doc"/>
<property name="version" value="1.1.2"/>
<property name="MainClass" value="fr.free.banks." />
<path id="lib.path">
        <fileset dir="${lib.dir}" includes="**/*.jar"/>
    </path>
<pathconvert property="lib.classpath" pathsep=" " dirsep="/">
<path refid="lib.path"></path>
      <map from="${basedir}/lib" to="lib"/>
    </pathconvert>

<taskdef name="xjc" classname="com.sun.tools.xjc.XJCTask">
  <classpath>
    <fileset dir="${lib.dir}" includes="*.jar" />
  </classpath>
</taskdef>

    <target name="clean">
        <delete dir="${build.dir}"/>
        <delete dir="${dist.dir}"/>
        <delete dir="${src-generated.dir}" />
    </target>

    <target name="prebuild">
        <mkdir dir="${build.dir}" />
        <mkdir dir="${dist.dir}" />
        <mkdir dir="${src-generated.dir}" />
    </target>

    <target name="main" description="Build complet" depends="clean,create-jar">
        <copy todir="${dist.dir}/lib">
          <fileset dir="${lib.dir}">
            <include name="**/*.jar"/>
          </fileset>
        </copy>
        <copy todir="${dist.dir}">
          <fileset dir="${basedir}">
            <include name="*.xsd"/>
          </fileset>
        </copy>
        <!--copy todir="${dist.dir}/doc">
          <fileset dir="${basedir}/doc">
            <include name="**/*.doc"/>
          </fileset>
        </copy-->
        <zip destfile="${ant.project.name}.zip">
            <zipfileset dir="dist" />
        </zip>
    </target>

    <target name="compile" description="Compile classes" depends="prebuild,generate-xjc">
        <javac srcdir="${src.dir}:${src-generated.dir}" destdir="${build.dir}">
            <classpath>
                <fileset dir="${lib.dir}">
                    <include name="**/*.jar"/>
                </fileset>
            </classpath>
        </javac>
    </target>

    <target name="generate-xjc" description="Generate classes with JAXB">
        <xjc package="fr.free.banks.phonebook.xml" destdir="${src-generated.dir}" >
            <classpath>
<pathelement location="${src.dir}"/>
<pathelement path="${jaxbwiz.xjcrun.classpath}"/>
            </classpath>
            <arg value="-xmlschema"/>
            <arg value="-extension"/>
            <!--arg value="-Xinject-listener-code" /-->
            <schema file="${src.dir}/phonebook.xsd"/>
<produces dir="${src-generated.dir}"/>
        </xjc>
    </target>

    <target name="create-jar" description="Create jar file" depends="compile">
        <copy todir="${build.dir}">
          <fileset dir="${src.dir}">
            <include name="**/log4j.xml"/>
          </fileset>
        </copy>
        <jar jarfile="${dist.dir}/${ant.project.name}.jar" basedir="${build.dir}" includes="**/*.class log4j.xml" >
            <manifest>
                <section name="${ant.project.name}">
                  <attribute name="Specification-Version" value="${version}"/>
                  <attribute name="Implementation-Version" value="${version}"/>
                </section>
                <attribute name="Main-Class" value="${MainClass}"/>
                <attribute name="Class-Path" value="${lib.classpath}"/>
            </manifest>

        </jar>
    </target>

    <target name="compile.test" description="Compile test classes">
        <mkdir dir="${build.test.dir}" />
        <copy todir="${build.dir}">
            <fileset dir="${basedir}">
                <include name="k.properties" />
            </fileset>
        </copy>
        <javac srcdir="${tst.dir}" destdir="${build.test.dir}" encoding="UTF-8">
            <classpath>
<pathelement location="${junit4.dir}/junit.jar" />
<pathelement location="${build.dir}" />
            </classpath>
        </javac>
    </target>

    <target name="test" depends="compile.test">
        <junit>
            <classpath refid="classpath.test" />

            <formatter type="brief"  />
            <!--test name="com.bnpparibas.itp.qm.qos.anonymiser.test.AnonymiserTest" haltonfailure="no" outfile="result">
                <formatter type="xml"/>
            </test-->

              <batchtest fork="yes" todir="buildtest">
                <fileset dir="${tst.dir}">
                  <include name="**/*Test*.java"/>
                </fileset>
              </batchtest>

        </junit>
    </target>

    <target name="javadoc">
        <javadoc access="public" author="true" classpath="lib/log4j-1.2.15.jar;C:\Sauvegarde\eclipse-cpp-plugin\eclipse\plugins\org.junit4_4.3.1\junit.jar" destdir="${javadoc.dir}" nodeprecated="false" nodeprecatedlist="false" noindex="false" nonavbar="false" notree="false" source="1.5" sourcepath="${src.dir}" splitindex="true" use="true" version="true"/>
    </target>

    <target name="run">
        <java classname="fr.free.banks.phonebook.App"
               fork="true"
               failonerror="true"
               maxmemory="128m" >
            <classpath>
<pathelement location="${dist.dir}/${ant.project.name}.jar" />

            </classpath>
            <arg value="-f" />

        </java>
    </target>

</project>

You can had dependances from other projects in the prebuild target, for example add this :

<copy todir="${lib.dir}">
    <fileset dir="${basedir}/../otherproject/dist">
    <include name="otherproject.jar"/> </fileset>
 </copy>

Hopes this can help you. And don’t hesitate to report possible errors.