Apache
Ant (Another Neat Tool) : Lesson 2
Ant
provides a number of predefined data types.
1.
File Set
Fileset
data types represents a collection of
files.
The
Fileset data type is usually used as a filter to include and exclude
files that match a particular pattern.
Example:
selects all java files in the source folder except
those that contain the word 'Stub'
<fileset
dir="${src}"
casesensitive="yes">
<include
name="**/*.java"/>
<exclude
name="**/*Stub*"/>
</fileset>
2.
Pattern Set
A
pattern set is a pattern that allows to easily
filter files or folders based on certain patterns.
Patterns
can be created using the following meta characters.
?
- Matches one character only
*
- Matches zero or many characters
**
- Matches zero or many directories recursively
Example
:
<patternset
id="java.files.without.stubs">
<include
name="src/**/*.java"/>
<exclude
name="src/**/*Stub*"/>
</patternset>
<fileset
dir="${src}"
casesensitive="yes">
<patternset
refid="java.files.without.stubs"/>
</fileset>
3.
File List
The
File list data type is similar to the file set except that the File
List contains explicitly named lists of files and do not support wild
cards.
Another
major difference between the file list and the file set data type is
that the file list data type can be applied for files that may or may
not exist yet.
Example
:
<filelist
id="config.files"
dir="${webapp.src.folder}">
<file
name="applicationConfig.xml"/>
<file
name="faces-config.xml"/>
<file
name="web.xml"/>
<file
name="portlet.xml"/>
</filelist>
The
webapp.src.folder attribute in the above example points to the web
application's source folder of the project.
4.Filter
Set
Using
a Filter Set data type with
the copy task, you can replace certain text in all files that match
the pattern with a replacement value.
A
common example is to append the version number to the release notes
file, as shown in the example below
<copy
todir="${output.dir}">
<fileset
dir="${releasenotes.dir}"
includes="**/*.txt"/>
<filterset>
<filter
token="VERSION"
value="${current.version}"/>
</filterset>
</copy>
*
The output.dir attribute in the above example points to the output
folder of the project.
*
The releasenotes.dir attribute in the above example points to the
release notes folder of the project.
*
The current.version attribute in the above example points to the
current version folder of the project.
The
copy task, as the name suggests is used to copy files from one
location to another.
5.
Path
The
path data type is commonly used to represent a
classpath.
Entries
in the path are separated using a semicolon or colon.
However,
these characters are replaced a the run time by the running system's
path separator character.
Example:
<path
id="build.classpath.jar">
<pathelement
path="${env.J2EE_HOME}/${j2ee.jar}"/>
<fileset
dir="lib">
<include
name="**/*.jar"/>
</fileset>
</path>
The
env.J2EE_HOME attribute in the above example points to the
environment variable J2EE_HOME.
The
j2ee.jar attribute in the above example points to the name of the
J2EE jar file in the J2EE base folder.
Reference
: http://www.tutorialspoint.com
