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168 </div>
169 <div class="lightbluebar">&nbsp;</div>
170 <div class="main">
171 <div class="content">
172 <h1 class="title">Frequently Asked Questions</h1>
173
174 <h3 class="section">Questions</h3>
175 <h4 class="toc">About this FAQ</h4>
176 <ul>
177 <li><a href="#latest-version">
178 Where do I find the latest version of this
179 document?
180 </a></li>
181 <li><a href="#adding-faqs">
182 How can I contribute to this FAQ?
183 </a></li>
184 <li><a href="#creating-faq">
185 How do you create the HTML version of this
186 FAQ?
187 </a></li>
188 </ul>
189 <h4 class="toc">General</h4>
190 <ul>
191 <li><a href="#what-is-ant">
192 What is Apache Ant?
193 </a></li>
194 <li><a href="#ant-name">
195 Why do you call it Ant?
196 </a></li>
197 <li><a href="#history">
198 Tell us a little bit about Ant's history.
199 </a></li>
200 </ul>
201 <h4 class="toc">Installation</h4>
202 <ul>
203 <li><a href="#no-gnu-tar">
204 I get checksum errors when I try to extract the
205 <code>tar.gz</code> distribution file. Why?
206 </a></li>
207 <li><a href="#RedHat_ES_3">
208 How do you get ant-1.6.x (or any version later than
209 1.5.2) to work on on RedHat ES 3?
210 </a></li>
211 </ul>
212 <h4 class="toc">How do I ...</h4>
213 <ul>
214 <li><a href="#implement-os-specific-configuration">
215 How do I realize os--specific configurations?
216 </a></li>
217 <li><a href="#adding-external-tasks">
218 How do I add an external task that I've written to the
219 page "External Tools and Tasks"?
220 </a></li>
221 <li><a href="#create-extensions">
222 How do I create new tasks?
223 </a></li>
224 <li><a href="#passing-cli-args">
225 How do I pass parameters from the command line to my
226 build file?
227 </a></li>
228 <li><a href="#jikes-switches">
229 How can I use Jikes-specific command-line
230 switches?
231 </a></li>
232 <li><a href="#shell-redirect-1">
233 How do I include a &lt; character in my command-line arguments?
234 </a></li>
235 <li><a href="#shell-redirect-2">
236 How do I redirect standard input or standard output
237 in the <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code> task?
238 </a></li>
239 <li><a href="#batch-shell-execute">
240 How do I execute a batch file or shell script from Ant?
241 </a></li>
242 <li><a href="#multi-conditions">
243 I want to execute a particular target only if
244 multiple conditions are true.
245 </a></li>
246 <li><a href="#encoding">
247 How can I include national characters like German
248 umlauts in my build file?
249 </a></li>
250 <li><a href="#use-zip-instead-of-jar">
251 How do I use <code>jar</code>'s <code>M</code> switch?
252 I don't want a MANIFEST.
253 </a></li>
254 <li><a href="#propertyvalue-as-name-for-property">
255 How can I do something like <code>&lt;property name="prop"
256 value="${${anotherprop}}"/&gt;</code> (double expanding the property)?
257 </a></li>
258 </ul>
259 <h4 class="toc">It doesn't work (as expected)</h4>
260 <ul>
261 <li><a href="#genral-advice">
262 General Advice
263 </a></li>
264 <li><a href="#always-recompiles">
265 Why does Ant always recompile all my Java files?
266 </a></li>
267 <li><a href="#defaultexcludes">
268 I've used a <code>&lt;delete&gt;</code> task to
269 delete unwanted SourceSafe control files (CVS files, editor
270 backup files, etc.), but it doesn't seem to work; the files
271 never get deleted. What's wrong?
272 </a></li>
273 <li><a href="#stop-dependency">
274 I have a target I want to skip if a property is set,
275 so I have <code>unless="property"</code> as an attribute
276 of the target, but all the targets this target
277 depends on are still executed. Why?
278 </a></li>
279 <li><a href="#include-order">
280 In my <code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>, I've put in an
281 <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> of all files followed by an
282 <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> of just the files I want, but it
283 isn't giving me any files at all. What's wrong?
284
285 </a></li>
286 <li><a href="#properties-not-trimmed">
287 <code>ant</code> failed to build my program via javac
288 even when I put the needed jars in an external
289 <code>build.properties</code> file and reference them by
290 <code>pathelement</code> or <code>classpath refid</code>.
291 </a></li>
292 <li><a href="#winzip-lies">
293 Ant creates WAR files with a lower-case
294 <code>web-inf</code> or JAR files with a lower-case
295 <code>meta-inf</code> directory.
296 </a></li>
297 <li><a href="#NoClassDefFoundError">
298 I installed Ant 1.6.x and now get
299 <code>Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError:
300 </code>
301
302 </a></li>
303 <li><a href="#InstantiationException">
304 I installed Ant 1.6.x and now get
305 <code>java.lang.InstantiationException: org.apache.tools.ant.Main</code>
306
307 </a></li>
308 <li><a href="#mangled-manifest">
309
310 Whenever I use the Ant jar or manifest related tasks, long lines in
311 my manifest are wrapped at 70 characters and the resulting jar does
312 not work in my application server. Why does Ant do this?
313
314 </a></li>
315 </ul>
316 <h4 class="toc">Ant and IDEs/Editors</h4>
317 <ul>
318 <li><a href="#integration">
319 Is Ant supported by my IDE/Editor?
320 </a></li>
321 <li><a href="#emacs-mode">
322 Why doesn't (X)Emacs/vi/MacOS X's project builder
323 correctly parse the error messages generated by Ant?
324 </a></li>
325 </ul>
326 <h4 class="toc">Advanced Issues</h4>
327 <ul>
328 <li><a href="#dtd">
329 Is there a DTD that I can use to validate my build
330 files?
331 </a></li>
332 <li><a href="#xml-entity-include">
333 How do I include an XML snippet in my build file?
334 </a></li>
335 <li><a href="#mail-logger">
336 How do I send an email with the result of my build
337 process?
338 </a></li>
339 <li><a href="#listener-properties">
340 How do I get at the properties that Ant was running
341 with from inside BuildListener?
342 </a></li>
343 </ul>
344 <h4 class="toc">Known Problems</h4>
345 <ul>
346 <li><a href="#remove-cr">
347 &lt;chmod&gt; or &lt;exec&gt; doesn't work in Ant
348 1.3 on Unix
349 </a></li>
350 <li><a href="#javadoc-cannot-execute">
351 JavaDoc failed: java.io.IOException: javadoc: cannot execute
352 </a></li>
353 <li><a href="#delegating-classloader">
354 &lt;style&gt; or &lt;junit&gt; ignores my
355 &lt;classpath&gt;
356 </a></li>
357 <li><a href="#delegating-classloader-1.5">
358 &lt;style&gt; or &lt;junit&gt; ignores my
359 &lt;classpath&gt; - Ant 1.5.x version
360 </a></li>
361 <li><a href="#delegating-classloader-1.6">
362 &lt;style&gt; or &lt;junit&gt; ignores my
363 &lt;classpath&gt; - Ant 1.6.x version
364 </a></li>
365 <li><a href="#winxp-jdk14-ant14">
366 When running Ant 1.4 on Windows XP and JDK 1.4, I get
367 various errors when trying to <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code>, fork
368 <code>&lt;java&gt;</code> or access environment
369 variables.
370 </a></li>
371 <li><a href="#1.5-cygwin-sh">
372 The <code>ant</code> wrapper script of Ant 1.5 fails
373 for Cygwin if <code>ANT_HOME</code> is set to a Windows style
374 path.
375 </a></li>
376 <li><a href="#1.5.2-zip-broken">
377 <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> is broken in Ant 1.5.2.
378 </a></li>
379 <li><a href="#unknownelement.taskcontainer">
380
381 Why do my custom task containers see Unknown Elements in Ant 1.6
382 - they worked in Ant 1.5?
383
384 </a></li>
385 <li><a href="#java.exception.stacktrace">
386
387 The program I run via &lt;java&gt; throws an exception but I
388 can't seem to get the full stack trace.
389
390 </a></li>
391 <li><a href="#junit-no-runtime-xml">
392
393 Using format="xml", &lt;junit&gt; fails with a
394 <code>NoClassDefFoundError</code> if forked.
395
396 </a></li>
397 <li><a href="#xalan-jdk1.5">
398
399 <code>&lt;junitreport&gt;</code> doesn't work with JDK 1.5 but
400 worked fine with JDK 1.4.
401
402 </a></li>
403 </ul>
404
405 <h3 class="section">Answers</h3>
406 <p class="faq">
407 <a name="latest-version"></a>
408 Where do I find the latest version of this
409 document?
410 </p>
411 <p>The latest version can always be found at Ant's homepage
412 <a href="http://ant.apache.org/faq.html">http://ant.apache.org/faq.html</a>.</p>
413 <p class="faq">
414 <a name="adding-faqs"></a>
415 How can I contribute to this FAQ?
416 </p>
417 <p>The page you are looking it is generated from
418 <a href="http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/ant/core/trunk/xdocs/faq.xml">this</a>
419 document. If you want to add a new question, please submit
420 a patch against this document to one of Ant's mailing lists;
421 hopefully, the structure is self-explanatory.</p>
422 <p>If you don't know how to create a patch, see the patches
423 section of <a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/site/source.html">this
424 page</a>.</p>
425 <p class="faq">
426 <a name="creating-faq"></a>
427 How do you create the HTML version of this
428 FAQ?
429 </p>
430 <p>We use
431 <a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/velocity/anakia.html">Anakia</a>
432 to render the HTML version from the original XML file.</p>
433 <p>The Velocity stylesheets used to process the XML files can
434 be found in the <code>xdocs/stylesheets</code> subdirectory of
435 Ant's SVN repository - the build file
436 <code>docs.xml</code> at the top level of the ant SVN
437 module (trunk) is used to drive Anakia.</p>
438 <p>This file assumes that you have the
439 <code>jakarta-site2</code> CVS module checked out as well, but
440 if you follow the instruction from Anakia's homepage, you
441 should get it to work without that. Just make sure all
442 required jars are in the task's classpath.</p>
443 <p class="faq">
444 <a name="what-is-ant"></a>
445 What is Apache Ant?
446 </p>
447 <p> Ant is a Java-based build tool. In theory, it is kind of
448 like Make, without Make's wrinkles and with the full
449 portability of pure Java code.</p>
450 <p class="faq">
451 <a name="ant-name"></a>
452 Why do you call it Ant?
453 </p>
454 <p>According to Ant's original author, James Duncan
455 Davidson, the name is an acronym for "Another Neat
456 Tool".</p>
457 <p>Later explanations go along the lines of "ants
458 do an extremely good job at building things", or
459 "ants are very small and can carry a weight dozens of times
460 their own" - describing what Ant is intended to
461 be.</p>
462 <p class="faq">
463 <a name="history"></a>
464 Tell us a little bit about Ant's history.
465 </p>
466 <p>Initially, Ant was part of the Tomcat code base, when it was
467 donated to the Apache Software Foundation. It was
468 created by James Duncan Davidson, who is also the original
469 author of Tomcat. Ant was there to build Tomcat, nothing
470 else.</p>
471 <p>Soon thereafter, several open source Java projects realized
472 that Ant could solve the problems they had with Makefiles.
473 Starting with the projects hosted at Jakarta and the old Java
474 Apache project, Ant spread like a virus and is now the build
475 tool of choice for a lot of projects.</p>
476 <p>In January 2000, Ant was moved to a separate CVS module and
477 was promoted to a project of its own, independent of
478 Tomcat, and became Apache Ant.</p>
479 <p>The first version of Ant that was exposed to a larger audience
480 was the one that shipped with Tomcat's 3.1 release on 19 April
481 2000. This version has later been referred to as Ant
482 0.3.1.</p>
483 <p>The first official release of Ant as a stand-alone product was
484 Ant 1.1, released on 19 July 2000. The complete release
485 history:</p>
486 <table class="ForrestTable" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="4">
487 <tr>
488 <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
489 valign="top" align="left">
490 Ant Version
491 </th>
492 <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
493 valign="top" align="left">
494 Release Date
495 </th>
496 </tr>
497 <tr>
498 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
499 valign="top" align="left">
500 1.1
501 </td>
502 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
503 valign="top" align="left">
504 19 July 2000
505 </td>
506 </tr>
507 <tr>
508 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
509 valign="top" align="left">
510 1.2
511 </td>
512 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
513 valign="top" align="left">
514 24 October 2000
515 </td>
516 </tr>
517 <tr>
518 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
519 valign="top" align="left">
520 1.3
521 </td>
522 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
523 valign="top" align="left">
524 3 March 2001
525 </td>
526 </tr>
527 <tr>
528 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
529 valign="top" align="left">
530 1.4
531 </td>
532 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
533 valign="top" align="left">
534 3 September 2001
535 </td>
536 </tr>
537 <tr>
538 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
539 valign="top" align="left">
540 1.4.1
541 </td>
542 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
543 valign="top" align="left">
544 11 October 2001
545 </td>
546 </tr>
547 <tr>
548 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
549 valign="top" align="left">
550 1.5
551 </td>
552 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
553 valign="top" align="left">
554 10 July 2002
555 </td>
556 </tr>
557 <tr>
558 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
559 valign="top" align="left">
560 1.5.1
561 </td>
562 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
563 valign="top" align="left">
564 3 October 2002
565 </td>
566 </tr>
567 <tr>
568 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
569 valign="top" align="left">
570 1.5.2
571 </td>
572 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
573 valign="top" align="left">
574 3 March 2003
575 </td>
576 </tr>
577 <tr>
578 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
579 valign="top" align="left">
580 1.5.3
581 </td>
582 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
583 valign="top" align="left">
584 9 April 2003
585 </td>
586 </tr>
587 <tr>
588 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
589 valign="top" align="left">
590 1.5.4
591 </td>
592 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
593 valign="top" align="left">
594 12 August 2003
595 </td>
596 </tr>
597 <tr>
598 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
599 valign="top" align="left">
600 1.6.0
601 </td>
602 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
603 valign="top" align="left">
604 18 December 2003
605 </td>
606 </tr>
607 <tr>
608 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
609 valign="top" align="left">
610 1.6.1
611 </td>
612 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
613 valign="top" align="left">
614 12 February 2004
615 </td>
616 </tr>
617 <tr>
618 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
619 valign="top" align="left">
620 1.6.2
621 </td>
622 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
623 valign="top" align="left">
624 16 July 2004
625 </td>
626 </tr>
627 <tr>
628 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
629 valign="top" align="left">
630 1.6.3
631 </td>
632 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
633 valign="top" align="left">
634 28 April 2005
635 </td>
636 </tr>
637 <tr>
638 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
639 valign="top" align="left">
640 1.6.4
641 </td>
642 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
643 valign="top" align="left">
644 19 May 2005
645 </td>
646 </tr>
647 <tr>
648 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
649 valign="top" align="left">
650 1.6.5
651 </td>
652 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
653 valign="top" align="left">
654 2 June 2005
655 </td>
656 </tr>
657 <tr>
658 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
659 valign="top" align="left">
660 1.7.0
661 </td>
662 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
663 valign="top" align="left">
664 19 December 2006
665 </td>
666 </tr>
667 </table>
668 <p class="faq">
669 <a name="no-gnu-tar"></a>
670 I get checksum errors when I try to extract the
671 <code>tar.gz</code> distribution file. Why?
672 </p>
673 <p>Ant's distribution contains file names that are longer
674 than 100 characters, which is not supported by the standard
675 tar file format. Several different implementations of tar use
676 different and incompatible ways to work around this
677 restriction.</p>
678 <p>Ant's &lt;tar&gt; task can create tar archives that use
679 the GNU tar extension, and this has been used when putting
680 together the distribution. If you are using a different
681 version of tar (for example, the one shipping with Solaris),
682 you cannot use it to extract the archive.</p>
683 <p>The solution is to either install GNU tar, which can be
684 found <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/tar.html">here</a>,
685 or use the zip archive instead (you can extract it using
686 <code>jar xf</code>).</p>
687 <p class="faq">
688 <a name="RedHat_ES_3"></a>
689 How do you get ant-1.6.x (or any version later than
690 1.5.2) to work on on RedHat ES 3?
691 </p>
692 <p>Redhat ES 3.0 comes installed with ant 1.5.2. Even if you
693 have your PATH and ANT_HOME variables set correctly to a later
694 version of ant, you will always be forced to use the
695 preinstalled version.</p>
696 <p>To use a later version of ant on this OS you could do the
697 following:</p>
698 <pre class="code">
699$ ant -version
700Apache Ant version 1.5.2-23 compiled on November 12 2003
701$ su -
702# rpm -e ant ant-libs
703# exit
704$ hash -r
705$ ant -version
706Apache Ant version 1.6.2 compiled on July 16 2004
707</pre>
708 <p class="faq">
709 <a name="implement-os-specific-configuration"></a>
710 How do I realize os--specific configurations?
711 </p>
712 <p>The core idea is using property files which name accords to the
713 os-name. Then simply use the build-in property <tt>os.name</tt>.</p>
714 <p>For better use you should also provide a file with defaul values.
715 But be careful with the correct os-names. For test simply &lt;echo&gt;
716 the ${os.name} on all machines and you can be sure to use the right
717 file names.</p>
718 <pre class="code">
719 &lt;property file=&quot;${os.name}.properties&quot;/&gt;
720 &lt;property file=&quot;default.properties&quot;/&gt;
721</pre>
722 <p class="faq">
723 <a name="adding-external-tasks"></a>
724 How do I add an external task that I've written to the
725 page "External Tools and Tasks"?
726 </p>
727 <p>Join and post a message to the dev or user mailing
728 list (one list is enough), including the following
729 information:</p>
730 <ul>
731 <li>the name of the task/tool</li>
732 <li>a short description of the task/tool</li>
733 <li>a Compatibility: entry stating with which version(s) of
734 Ant the tool/task is compatible to</li>
735 <li>a URL: entry linking to the main page of the tool/task</li>
736 <li>a Contact: entry containing the email address or the URL
737 of a webpage for the person or list to contact for issues
738 related to the tool/task. <strong>Note that we'll add a
739 link on the page, so any email address added there is not
740 obfuscated and can (and probably will) be abused by robots
741 harvesting websites for addresses to spam.</strong></li>
742 <li>a License: entry containing the type of license for the
743 tool/task</li>
744 </ul>
745 <p>The preferred format for this information is a patch to <a href="http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/ant/core/trunk/xdocs/external.xml">this</a>
746 document.</p>
747 <p>If you have written something bigger than a 'simple plugin' to Ant it
748 may be better to add the link to <a href="projects.html">projects.html</a>.
749 The procedure to add it is the same. The file to patch is <a href="http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/ant/core/trunk/xdocs/projects.xml">this</a>
750 document. The syntax of that file is the same.</p>
751 <p class="faq">
752 <a name="create-extensions"></a>
753 How do I create new tasks?
754 </p>
755 <p>Apart from a lot of information on using Ant, the
756 <a href="manual/index.html">Manual</a> also contains information
757 on how to extend Ant with new tasks. This information
758 can be found under "Developing with Ant".</p>
759 <p>Chances are that someone else already created the task you
760 want to create, it may be wise to see
761 <a href="external.html">External Tools and Tasks</a> and
762 <a href="projects.html">Related Projects</a> first.</p>
763 <p class="faq">
764 <a name="passing-cli-args"></a>
765 How do I pass parameters from the command line to my
766 build file?
767 </p>
768 <p>Use properties. Using <code>ant
769 -D<em>name</em>=<em>value</em></code> lets you define values for
770 properties on the Ant command line. These properties can then be
771 used within your build file as
772 any normal property: <code>${<em>name</em>}</code> will put in
773 <code><em>value</em></code>.</p>
774 <p class="faq">
775 <a name="jikes-switches"></a>
776 How can I use Jikes-specific command-line
777 switches?
778 </p>
779 <p>A couple of switches are supported via "magic"
780 properties:</p>
781 <table class="ForrestTable" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="4">
782 <tr>
783 <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
784 valign="top" align="left">
785 switch
786 </th>
787 <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
788 valign="top" align="left">
789 property
790 </th>
791 <th colspan="1" rowspan="1"
792 valign="top" align="left">
793 default
794 </th>
795 </tr>
796 <tr>
797 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
798 valign="top" align="left">
799 +E
800 </td>
801 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
802 valign="top" align="left">
803 build.compiler.emacs
804 </td>
805 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
806 valign="top" align="left">
807 false == not set
808 </td>
809 </tr>
810 <tr>
811 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
812 valign="top" align="left">
813 +P
814 </td>
815 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
816 valign="top" align="left">
817 build.compiler.pedantic
818 </td>
819 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
820 valign="top" align="left">
821 false == not set
822 </td>
823 </tr>
824 <tr>
825 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
826 valign="top" align="left">
827 +F
828 </td>
829 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
830 valign="top" align="left">
831 build.compiler.fulldepend
832 </td>
833 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
834 valign="top" align="left">
835 false == not set
836 </td>
837 </tr>
838 <tr>
839 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
840 valign="top" align="left">
841 <strong>(Only for Ant &lt; 1.4; replaced by the
842 <code><strong>nowarn</strong></code>
843 attribute of the <code><strong>&lt;javac&gt;</strong></code>
844 task after that.)</strong><br />-nowarn
845 </td>
846 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
847 valign="top" align="left">
848 build.compiler.warnings
849 </td>
850 <td colspan="1" rowspan="1"
851 valign="top" align="left">
852 true == not set
853 </td>
854 </tr>
855 </table>
856 <p>With Ant &gt;= 1.5, you can also use nested
857 <code>&lt;compilerarg&gt;</code> elements with the
858 <code>&lt;javac&gt;</code> task.</p>
859 <p class="faq">
860 <a name="shell-redirect-1"></a>
861 How do I include a &lt; character in my command-line arguments?
862 </p>
863 <p>The short answer is "Use: <code>&amp;lt;</code>".</p>
864 <p>The long answer is that this probably won't do what you
865 want anyway (see <a href="#shell-redirect-2">the next
866 section</a>).</p>
867 <p class="faq">
868 <a name="shell-redirect-2"></a>
869 How do I redirect standard input or standard output
870 in the <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code> task?
871 </p>
872 <p>Say you want to redirect the standard output stream of the
873 <code>m4</code> command to write to a file, something
874 like:</p>
875 <pre class="code">
876shell-prompt&gt; m4 foo.m4 &gt; foo
877</pre>
878 <p>and try to translate it into</p>
879 <pre class="code">
880&lt;exec executable=&quot;m4&quot;&gt;
881 &lt;arg value=&quot;foo.m4&quot;/&gt;
882 &lt;arg value=&quot;&amp;gt;&quot;/&gt;
883 &lt;arg value=&quot;foo&quot;/&gt;
884&lt;/exec&gt;
885</pre>
886 <p>This will not do what you expect. The output redirection is
887 performed by your shell, not the command itself, so this
888 should read:</p>
889 <pre class="code">
890&lt;exec executable=&quot;/bin/sh&quot;&gt;
891 &lt;arg value=&quot;-c&quot; /&gt;
892 &lt;arg value=&quot;m4 foo.m4 &amp;gt; foo&quot; /&gt;
893&lt;/exec&gt;
894</pre>
895 <p>Note that you must use the <code>value</code> attribute of
896 <code>&lt;arg&gt;</code> in the last element, in order to have
897 the command passed as a single, quoted argument. Alternatively,
898 you can use:</p>
899 <pre class="code">
900&lt;exec executable=&quot;/bin/sh&quot;&gt;
901 &lt;arg line='-c &quot;m4 foo.m4 &amp;gt; foo&quot;'/&gt;
902&lt;/exec&gt;
903</pre>
904 <p>Note the double-quotes nested inside the single-quotes.</p>
905 <p class="faq">
906 <a name="batch-shell-execute"></a>
907 How do I execute a batch file or shell script from Ant?
908 </p>
909 <p>On native Unix systems, you should be able to run shell scripts
910 directly. On systems running a Unix-type shell (for example, Cygwin
911 on Windows) execute the (command) shell instead - <code>cmd</code>
912 for batch files, <code>sh</code> for shell scripts - then pass the
913 batch file or shell script (plus any arguments to the script)
914 as a single command, using the <code>/c</code> or
915 <code>-c</code> switch, respectively. See
916 <a href="#shell-redirect-2">the above section</a>
917 for example <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code> tasks
918 executing <code>sh</code>. For batch files, use something like:</p>
919 <pre class="code">
920&lt;exec dir=&quot;.&quot; executable=&quot;cmd&quot; os=&quot;Windows NT&quot;&gt;
921 &lt;arg line=&quot;/c test.bat&quot;/&gt;
922&lt;/exec&gt;
923</pre>
924 <p class="faq">
925 <a name="multi-conditions"></a>
926 I want to execute a particular target only if
927 multiple conditions are true.
928 </p>
929 <p>There are actually several answers to this question.</p>
930 <p>If you have only one set and one unset property to test,
931 you can specify both an <code>if</code> and an <code>unless</code>
932 attribute for the target, and they will act as if they
933 are "anded" together.</p>
934 <p>If you are using a version of Ant 1.3 or earlier, the
935 way to work with all other cases is to chain targets together
936 to determine the specific state you want to test for.</p>
937 <p>To see how this works, assume you have three properties:
938 <code>prop1</code>, <code>prop2</code>, and <code>prop3</code>.
939 You want to test that <code>prop1</code> and <code>prop2</code>
940 are set, and that <code>prop3</code> is not. If the condition
941 holds true you want to echo "yes".</p>
942 <p>Here is the implementation in Ant 1.3 and earlier:</p>
943 <pre class="code">
944&lt;target name=&quot;cond&quot; depends=&quot;cond-if&quot;/&gt;
945
946&lt;target name=&quot;cond-if&quot; if=&quot;prop1&quot;&gt;
947 &lt;antcall target=&quot;cond-if-2&quot;/&gt;
948&lt;/target&gt;
949
950&lt;target name=&quot;cond-if-2&quot; if=&quot;prop2&quot;&gt;
951 &lt;antcall target=&quot;cond-if-3&quot;/&gt;
952&lt;/target&gt;
953
954&lt;target name=&quot;cond-if-3&quot; unless=&quot;prop3&quot;&gt;
955 &lt;echo message=&quot;yes&quot;/&gt;
956&lt;/target&gt;
957</pre>
958 <p>Note: <code>&lt;antcall&gt;</code> tasks do <em>not</em> pass
959 property changes back up to the environment they were called
960 from, so you wouldn't be able to, for example, set a
961 <code>result</code> property in the <code>cond-if-3</code> target,
962 then do
963 <code>&lt;echo message="result is ${result}"/&gt;</code>
964 in the <code>cond</code> target.</p>
965 <p>Starting with Ant 1.4, you can use the
966 <code>&lt;condition&gt;</code> task.</p>
967 <pre class="code">
968&lt;target name=&quot;cond&quot; depends=&quot;cond-if,cond-else&quot;/&gt;
969
970&lt;target name=&quot;check-cond&quot;&gt;
971 &lt;condition property=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
972 &lt;and&gt;
973 &lt;not&gt;
974 &lt;equals arg1=&quot;${prop1}&quot; arg2=&quot;$${prop1}&quot; /&gt;
975 &lt;/not&gt;
976 &lt;not&gt;
977 &lt;equals arg1=&quot;${prop2}&quot; arg2=&quot;$${prop2}&quot; /&gt;
978 &lt;/not&gt;
979 &lt;equals arg1=&quot;${prop3}&quot; arg2=&quot;$${prop3}&quot; /&gt;
980 &lt;/and&gt;
981 &lt;/condition&gt;
982&lt;/target&gt;
983
984&lt;target name=&quot;cond-if&quot; depends=&quot;check-cond&quot; if=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
985 &lt;echo message=&quot;yes&quot;/&gt;
986&lt;/target&gt;
987
988&lt;target name=&quot;cond-else&quot; depends=&quot;check-cond&quot; unless=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
989 &lt;echo message=&quot;no&quot;/&gt;
990&lt;/target&gt;
991</pre>
992 <p>This version takes advantage of two things:</p>
993 <ul>
994 <li>If a property <code>a</code> has not been set,
995 <code>${a}</code> will evaluate to <code>${a}</code>.</li>
996
997 <li>To get a literal <code>$</code> in Ant, you have to
998 escape it with another <code>$</code> - this will also break
999 the special treatment of the <code>${</code> sequence.</li>
1000 </ul>
1001 <p>Because testing for a literal <code>${property}</code> string
1002 isn't all that readable or easy to understand,
1003 post-1.4.1 Ant introduces the <code>&lt;isset&gt;</code> element
1004 to the <code>&lt;condition&gt;</code> task.</p>
1005 <p>Here is the previous example done using
1006 <code>&lt;isset&gt;</code>:</p>
1007 <pre class="code">
1008&lt;target name=&quot;check-cond&quot;&gt;
1009 &lt;condition property=&quot;cond-is-true&quot;&gt;
1010 &lt;and&gt;
1011 &lt;isset property=&quot;prop1&quot;/&gt;
1012 &lt;isset property=&quot;prop2&quot;/&gt;
1013 &lt;not&gt;
1014 &lt;isset property=&quot;prop3&quot;/&gt;
1015 &lt;/not&gt;
1016 &lt;/and&gt;
1017 &lt;/condition&gt;
1018&lt;/target&gt;
1019</pre>
1020 <p>The last option is to use a scripting language to set the
1021 properties. This can be particularly handy when you need much
1022 finer control than the simple conditions shown here but, of
1023 course, comes with the overhead of adding JAR files to support
1024 the language, to say nothing of the added maintenance in requiring
1025 two languages to implement a single system. See the
1026 <a href="manual/OptionalTasks/script.html">
1027 <code>&lt;script&gt;</code> task documentation</a> for more
1028 details.</p>
1029 <p class="faq">
1030 <a name="encoding"></a>
1031 How can I include national characters like German
1032 umlauts in my build file?
1033 </p>
1034 <p>You need to tell the XML parser which character encoding
1035 your build file uses, this is done inside the <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-xml-20001006#sec-prolog-dtd">XML
1036 declaration</a>.</p>
1037 <p>By default the parser assumes you are using the UTF-8
1038 encoding instead of your platform's default. For most Western
1039 European countries you should set the encoding to
1040 <code>ISO-8859-1</code>. To do so, make the very first line
1041 of you build file read like</p>
1042 <pre class="code">
1043&lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot; encoding=&quot;ISO-8859-1&quot; ?&gt;
1044</pre>
1045 <p class="faq">
1046 <a name="use-zip-instead-of-jar"></a>
1047 How do I use <code>jar</code>'s <code>M</code> switch?
1048 I don't want a MANIFEST.
1049 </p>
1050 <p>A JAR archive is a ZIP file, so if you don't want a
1051 MANIFEST you can simply use <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code>.</p>
1052 <p>If your file names contain national characters you should
1053 know that Sun's <code>jar</code> utility like Ant's
1054 <code>&lt;jar&gt;</code> uses UTF-8 to encode their names while
1055 <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> uses your platforms default encoding.
1056 Use the encoding attribute of <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> if
1057 necessary.</p>
1058 <p class="faq">
1059 <a name="propertyvalue-as-name-for-property"></a>
1060 How can I do something like <code>&lt;property name="prop"
1061 value="${${anotherprop}}"/&gt;</code> (double expanding the property)?
1062 </p>
1063 <p>Without any external help you can not.</p>
1064 <p>With &lt;script/&gt;, which needs external libraries, you can do</p>
1065 <pre class="code">
1066&lt;script language=&quot;javascript&quot;&gt;
1067 propname = project.getProperty(&quot;anotherprop&quot;);
1068 project.setNewProperty(&quot;prop&quot;, propname);
1069&lt;/script&gt;
1070</pre>
1071 <p>With AntContrib (external task library) you can do <code>
1072 &lt;propertycopy name="prop" from="${anotherprop}"/&gt;</code>.</p>
1073 <p>With Ant 1.6 you can simulate the AntContribs &lt;propertycopy&gt;
1074 and avoid the need of an external library:</p>
1075 <pre class="code">
1076&lt;macrodef name=&quot;propertycopy&quot;&gt;
1077 &lt;attribute name=&quot;name&quot;/&gt;
1078 &lt;attribute name=&quot;from&quot;/&gt;
1079 &lt;sequential&gt;
1080 &lt;property name=&quot;@{name}&quot; value=&quot;${@{from}}&quot;/&gt;
1081 &lt;/sequential&gt;
1082&lt;/macrodef&gt;
1083</pre>
1084 <p class="faq">
1085 <a name="genral-advice"></a>
1086 General Advice
1087 </p>
1088 <p>There are many reasons why Ant doesn't behave as
1089 expected, not all of them are due to Ant bugs. See our <a href="problems.html">Having Problems?</a> page for hints that
1090 may help pinning down the reasons for your problem.</p>
1091 <p class="faq">
1092 <a name="always-recompiles"></a>
1093 Why does Ant always recompile all my Java files?
1094 </p>
1095 <p>In order to find out which files should be compiled, Ant
1096 compares the timestamps of the source files to those of the
1097 resulting <code>.class</code> files. Opening all source files
1098 to find out which package they belong to would be very
1099 inefficient. Instead, Ant expects you to place your
1100 source files in a directory hierarchy that mirrors your
1101 package hierarchy and to point Ant to the root of this
1102 directory tree with the <code>srcdir</code> attribute.</p>
1103 <p>Say you have <code>&lt;javac srcdir="src"
1104 destdir="dest"/&gt;</code>. If Ant finds a file
1105 <code>src/a/b/C.java</code>, it expects it to be in package
1106 <code>a.b</code> so that the resulting <code>.class</code>
1107 file is going to be <code>dest/a/b/C.class</code>.</p>
1108 <p>If your source-tree directory structure does not match your
1109 package structure, Ant's heuristic won't work, and
1110 it will recompile classes that are up-to-date. Ant is not the
1111 only tool that expects a source-tree layout like this.</p>
1112 <p>If you have Java source files that aren't declared to
1113 be part of any package, you can still use the <code>&lt;javac&gt;</code>
1114 task to compile these files correctly - just set the
1115 <code>srcdir</code> and <code>destdir</code> attributes to
1116 the actual directory the source
1117 files live in and the directory the class files should go into,
1118 respectively.</p>
1119 <p class="faq">
1120 <a name="defaultexcludes"></a>
1121 I've used a <code>&lt;delete&gt;</code> task to
1122 delete unwanted SourceSafe control files (CVS files, editor
1123 backup files, etc.), but it doesn't seem to work; the files
1124 never get deleted. What's wrong?
1125 </p>
1126 <p>This is probably happening because, by default, Ant excludes
1127 SourceSafe control files (<code>vssver.scc</code>) and certain other
1128 files from FileSets.</p>
1129 <p>Here's what you probably did:</p>
1130 <pre class="code">
1131&lt;delete&gt;
1132 &lt;fileset dir=&quot;${build.src}&quot; includes=&quot;**/vssver.scc&quot;/&gt;
1133&lt;/delete&gt;
1134</pre>
1135 <p>You need to switch off the default exclusions,
1136 and it will work:</p>
1137 <pre class="code">
1138&lt;delete&gt;
1139 &lt;fileset dir=&quot;${build.src}&quot; includes=&quot;**/vssver.scc&quot;
1140 defaultexcludes=&quot;no&quot;/&gt;
1141&lt;/delete&gt;
1142</pre>
1143 <p>For a complete listing of the patterns that are excluded
1144 by default, see <a href="manual/dirtasks.html#defaultexcludes">the user
1145 manual</a>.</p>
1146 <p class="faq">
1147 <a name="stop-dependency"></a>
1148 I have a target I want to skip if a property is set,
1149 so I have <code>unless="property"</code> as an attribute
1150 of the target, but all the targets this target
1151 depends on are still executed. Why?
1152 </p>
1153 <p>The list of dependencies is generated by Ant before any of the
1154 targets are run. This allows dependent targets, such as an
1155 <code>init</code> target, to set properties that can control the
1156 execution of the targets higher in the dependency graph. This
1157 is a good thing.</p>
1158 <p>However, when your dependencies break down the
1159 higher-level task
1160 into several smaller steps, this behaviour becomes
1161 counter-intuitive. There are a couple of solutions available:
1162 </p>
1163 <ol>
1164 <li>Put the same condition on each of the dependent targets.</li>
1165
1166 <li>Execute the steps using <code>&lt;antcall&gt;</code>,
1167 instead of specifying them inside the <code>depends</code>
1168 attribute.</li>
1169 </ol>
1170 <p class="faq">
1171 <a name="include-order"></a>
1172 In my <code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>, I've put in an
1173 <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> of all files followed by an
1174 <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> of just the files I want, but it
1175 isn't giving me any files at all. What's wrong?
1176
1177 </p>
1178 <p>The order of the <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> and
1179 <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> tags within a <code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>
1180 is ignored when the FileSet is created. Instead, all of the
1181 <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> elements are processed together,
1182 followed by all of the <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code>
1183 elements. This means that the <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code>
1184 elements only apply to the file list produced by the
1185 <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> elements.</p>
1186 <p>To get the files you want, focus on just the
1187 <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> patterns that would be necessary
1188 to get them. If you find you need to trim the list that the
1189 <code>&lt;include&gt;</code> elements produce, then use
1190 <code>&lt;exclude&gt;</code> elements.</p>
1191 <p class="faq">
1192 <a name="properties-not-trimmed"></a>
1193 <code>ant</code> failed to build my program via javac
1194 even when I put the needed jars in an external
1195 <code>build.properties</code> file and reference them by
1196 <code>pathelement</code> or <code>classpath refid</code>.
1197 </p>
1198 <p>When <code>ant</code> loads properties from an external
1199 file it doesn't touch the value of properties, trailing blanks
1200 will not be trimmed for example.</p>
1201 <p>If the value represents a file path, like a jar needed to
1202 compile, the task which requires the value, javac for example
1203 would fail to compile since it can't find the file due to
1204 trailing spaces.</p>
1205 <p class="faq">
1206 <a name="winzip-lies"></a>
1207 Ant creates WAR files with a lower-case
1208 <code>web-inf</code> or JAR files with a lower-case
1209 <code>meta-inf</code> directory.
1210 </p>
1211 <p>No it doesn't.</p>
1212 <p>You may have seen these lower-case directory names in
1213 WinZIP, but WinZIP is trying to be helpful (and fails). If
1214 WinZIP encounters a filename that is all upper-case, it
1215 assumes it has come from an old DOS box and changes the case to
1216 all lower-case for you.</p>
1217 <p>If you extract (or just check) the archive with jar, you
1218 will see that the names have the correct case.</p>
1219 <p>With WinZIP (version 8.1 at least), this can be corrected in the
1220 configuration. In the Options/Configuration menu, in the View tab, General
1221 section, check the "Allow all upper case files names" box. The META-INF and
1222 WEB-INF will look correct.</p>
1223 <p class="faq">
1224 <a name="NoClassDefFoundError"></a>
1225 I installed Ant 1.6.x and now get
1226 <code>Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError:
1227 </code>
1228
1229 </p>
1230 <p>
1231 The cause of this is that there is an old version of ant somewhere in the
1232 class path or configuration.
1233 </p>
1234 <p>
1235 A version of this problem happens with jars that are in the classpath
1236 that include an embedded copy of ant classes.
1237 An example of this is some copies of weblogic.jar.
1238 </p>
1239 <p>
1240 One can check if this is the case by doing (on unix/sh):
1241 <code><pre>
1242 unset CLASSPATH
1243 ant -version
1244 </pre>
1245 </code>
1246 </p>
1247 <p class="faq">
1248 <a name="InstantiationException"></a>
1249 I installed Ant 1.6.x and now get
1250 <code>java.lang.InstantiationException: org.apache.tools.ant.Main</code>
1251
1252 </p>
1253 <p>
1254 The cause of this is that there is an old version of ant somewhere in the
1255 class path or configuration.
1256 </p>
1257 <p>
1258 A version of this problem may be seen on some linux systems.
1259 Some linux systems (Fedora Core 2 for example), comes with a version
1260 of ant pre-installed. There is a configuration file called
1261 <code>/etc/ant.conf</code> which if present, the ant shell
1262 script will 'dot' include. On Fedora Core 2, the /etc/ant.conf
1263 file resets the <code>ANT_HOME</code> environment variable to
1264 <code>/usr/share/ant</code>. This causes the problem that
1265 an old version of ant (1.5.x in this cause) will be used
1266 with a new version of the ant script file.
1267 </p>
1268 <p>
1269 One can check if this is the case by doing
1270 <code>ant --noconfig -version</code>.
1271 </p>
1272 <p class="faq">
1273 <a name="mangled-manifest"></a>
1274
1275 Whenever I use the Ant jar or manifest related tasks, long lines in
1276 my manifest are wrapped at 70 characters and the resulting jar does
1277 not work in my application server. Why does Ant do this?
1278
1279 </p>
1280 <p>
1281 Ant implements the Java
1282 <a href="http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/guide/jar/jar.html">Jar
1283 file specification</a>. Please refer to the notes section where it
1284 discusses the maximum allowable length of a line and the concept of
1285 continuation characters.
1286 </p>
1287 <p>
1288 If a jar file produced by Ant does not work in your appserver, and
1289 that failure is due to the wrapped manifest, then you need
1290 to consult your appserver provider, as it is a bug in their
1291 appserver. Far more likely, however, is a problem in your
1292 specification of your classpath. It is not Ant's wrapping of your
1293 classpath that is the problem.
1294 </p>
1295 <p>
1296 Do not raise a bug about this issue until you have checked to ensure
1297 that the problem is not due to your classpath specification.
1298 </p>
1299 <p class="faq">
1300 <a name="integration"></a>
1301 Is Ant supported by my IDE/Editor?
1302 </p>
1303 <p>See the <a href="external.html#IDE and Editor Integration">section
1304 on IDE integration</a> on our External Tools and Tasks page.</p>
1305 <p class="faq">
1306 <a name="emacs-mode"></a>
1307 Why doesn't (X)Emacs/vi/MacOS X's project builder
1308 correctly parse the error messages generated by Ant?
1309 </p>
1310 <p>Ant adds a "banner" with the name of the current
1311 task in front of all logging messages - and there are no built-in
1312 regular expressions in your editor that would account for
1313 this.</p>
1314 <p>You can disable this banner by invoking Ant with the
1315 <code>-emacs</code> switch. To make Ant autodetect
1316 Emacs' compile mode, put this into your
1317 <code>.antrc</code> (contributed by Ville Skyttä).</p>
1318 <pre class="code">
1319# Detect (X)Emacs compile mode
1320if [ &quot;$EMACS&quot; = &quot;t&quot; ] ; then
1321 ANT_ARGS=&quot;$ANT_ARGS -emacs&quot;
1322 ANT_OPTS=&quot;$ANT_OPTS -Dbuild.compiler.emacs=true&quot;
1323fi
1324</pre>
1325 <p>Alternatively, you can add the following snippet to your
1326 <code>.emacs</code> to make Emacs understand Ant's
1327 output.</p>
1328 <pre class="code">
1329(require 'compile)
1330(setq compilation-error-regexp-alist
1331 (append (list
1332 ;; works for jikes
1333 '(&quot;^\\s-*\\[[^]]*\\]\\s-*\\(.+\\):\\([0-9]+\\):\\([0-9]+\\):[0-9]+:[0-9]+:&quot; 1 2 3)
1334 ;; works for javac
1335 '(&quot;^\\s-*\\[[^]]*\\]\\s-*\\(.+\\):\\([0-9]+\\):&quot; 1 2))
1336 compilation-error-regexp-alist))
1337</pre>
1338 <p>Yet another alternative that preserves most of Ant's
1339 formatting is to pipe Ant's output through the following Perl
1340 script by Dirk-Willem van Gulik:</p>
1341 <pre class="code">
1342#!/usr/bin/perl
1343#
1344# May 2001 [email protected] - remove any
1345# [foo] lines from the output; keeping
1346# spacing more or less there.
1347#
1348$|=1;
1349while(&lt;STDIN&gt;) {
1350 if (s/^(\s+)\[(\w+)\]//) {
1351 if ($2 ne $last) {
1352 print &quot;$1\[$2\]&quot;;
1353 $s = ' ' x length($2);
1354 } else {
1355 print &quot;$1 $s &quot;;
1356 };
1357 $last = $2;
1358 };
1359 print;
1360};
1361</pre>
1362 <p class="faq">
1363 <a name="dtd"></a>
1364 Is there a DTD that I can use to validate my build
1365 files?
1366 </p>
1367 <p>An incomplete DTD can be created by the
1368 <code>&lt;antstructure&gt;</code> task - but this one
1369 has a few problems:</p>
1370 <ul>
1371 <li>It doesn't know about required attributes. Only
1372 manual tweaking of this file can help here.</li>
1373
1374 <li>It is not complete - if you add new tasks via
1375 <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> it won't know about it. See
1376 <a href="http://www.sdv.fr/pages/casa/html/ant-dtd.en.html">this
1377 page</a> by Michel Casabianca for a solution to this
1378 problem. Note that the DTD you can download at this page
1379 is based on Ant 0.3.1.</li>
1380
1381 <li>It may even be an invalid DTD. As Ant allows tasks
1382 writers to define arbitrary elements, name collisions will
1383 happen quite frequently - if your version of Ant contains
1384 the optional <code>&lt;test&gt;</code> and
1385 <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> tasks, there are two XML
1386 elements named <code>test</code> (the task and the nested child
1387 element of <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code>) with different attribute
1388 lists. This problem cannot be solved; DTDs don't give a
1389 syntax rich enough to support this.</li>
1390 </ul>
1391 <p class="faq">
1392 <a name="xml-entity-include"></a>
1393 How do I include an XML snippet in my build file?
1394 </p>
1395 <p>You can use XML's way of including external files and let
1396 the parser do the job for Ant:</p>
1397 <pre class="code">
1398&lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot;?&gt;
1399
1400&lt;!DOCTYPE project [
1401 &lt;!ENTITY common SYSTEM &quot;common.xml&quot;&gt;
1402]&gt;
1403
1404&lt;project name=&quot;test&quot; default=&quot;test&quot; basedir=&quot;.&quot;&gt;
1405
1406 &lt;target name=&quot;setup&quot;&gt;
1407 ...
1408 &lt;/target&gt;
1409
1410 &amp;common;
1411
1412 ...
1413
1414&lt;/project&gt;
1415</pre>
1416 <p>will literally include the contents of <code>common.xml</code> where
1417 you've placed the <code>&amp;common;</code> entity.</p>
1418 <p>(The filename <code>common.xml</code> in this example is resolved
1419 relative to the containing XML file by the XML parser. You may also use
1420 an absolute <code>file:</code> protocol URI.)</p>
1421 <p>In combination with a DTD, this would look like this:</p>
1422 <pre class="code">
1423&lt;!DOCTYPE project PUBLIC &quot;-//ANT//DTD project//EN&quot; &quot;ant.dtd&quot; [
1424 &lt;!ENTITY include SYSTEM &quot;header.xml&quot;&gt;
1425]&gt;
1426</pre>
1427 <p>Starting with Ant 1.6, there is a new
1428 <code>&lt;import&gt;</code> task that can (also) be used to
1429 include build file fragments. Unlike the snippets used with
1430 entity includes, the referenced files have to be complete Ant
1431 build files, though.</p>
1432 <p>The example above would become:</p>
1433 <pre class="code">
1434&lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot;?&gt;
1435&lt;project name=&quot;test&quot; default=&quot;test&quot; basedir=&quot;.&quot;&gt;
1436
1437 &lt;target name=&quot;setup&quot;&gt;
1438 ...
1439 &lt;/target&gt;
1440
1441 &lt;import file=&quot;./common.xml&quot;/&gt;
1442
1443 ...
1444
1445&lt;/project&gt;
1446</pre>
1447 <p>Unlike entity includes, <code>&lt;import&gt;</code> will
1448 let you use Ant properties in the file name.</p>
1449 <p class="faq">
1450 <a name="mail-logger"></a>
1451 How do I send an email with the result of my build
1452 process?
1453 </p>
1454 <p>If you are using a nightly build of Ant 1.5 after
1455 2001-12-14, you can use the built-in MailLogger:</p>
1456 <pre class="code">
1457 ant -logger org.apache.tools.ant.listener.MailLogger
1458</pre>
1459 <p>See the <a href="http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/ant/core/trunk/docs/manual/listeners.html">Listeners
1460 &amp; Loggers</a> documentation for details on the properties
1461 required.</p>
1462 <p>For older versions of Ant, you can use a custom
1463 BuildListener that sends out an email
1464 in the buildFinished() method. Will Glozer
1465 &lt;[email protected]&gt; has written such a listener based
1466 on <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/javamail/">JavaMail</a>.
1467 The source is:</p>
1468 <pre class="code">
1469import java.io.*;
1470import java.util.*;
1471import javax.mail.*;
1472import javax.mail.internet.*;
1473import org.apache.tools.ant.*;
1474
1475/**
1476 * A simple listener that waits for a build to finish and sends an email
1477 * of the results. The settings are stored in &quot;monitor.properties&quot; and
1478 * are fairly self explanatory.
1479 *
1480 * @author Will Glozer
1481 * @version 1.05a 09/06/2000
1482 */
1483public class BuildMonitor implements BuildListener {
1484 protected Properties props;
1485
1486 /**
1487 * Create a new BuildMonitor.
1488 */
1489 public BuildMonitor() throws Exception {
1490 props = new Properties();
1491 InputStream is = getClass().getResourceAsStream(&quot;monitor.properties&quot;);
1492 props.load(is);
1493 is.close();
1494 }
1495
1496 public void buildStarted(BuildEvent e) {
1497 }
1498
1499 /**
1500 * Determine the status of the build and the actions to follow, now that
1501 * the build has completed.
1502 *
1503 * @param e Event describing the build status.
1504 */
1505 public void buildFinished(BuildEvent e) {
1506 Throwable th = e.getException();
1507 String status = (th != null) ? &quot;failed&quot; : &quot;succeeded&quot;;
1508
1509 try {
1510 String key = &quot;build.&quot; + status;
1511 if (props.getProperty(key + &quot;.notify&quot;).equalsIgnoreCase(&quot;false&quot;)) {
1512 return;
1513 }
1514
1515 Session session = Session.getDefaultInstance(props, null);
1516
1517 MimeMessage message = new MimeMessage(session);
1518 message.addRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO, parseAddresses(
1519 props.getProperty(key + &quot;.email.to&quot;)));
1520 message.setSubject(props.getProperty(key + &quot;.email.subject&quot;));
1521
1522 BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(
1523 props.getProperty(&quot;build.log&quot;)));
1524 StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
1525
1526 String line = br.readLine();
1527 while (line != null) {
1528 sw.write(line);
1529 sw.write(&quot;\n&quot;);
1530 line = br.readLine();
1531 }
1532 br.close();
1533
1534 message.setText(sw.toString(), &quot;UTF-8&quot;);
1535 sw.close();
1536
1537 Transport transport = session.getTransport();
1538 transport.connect();
1539 transport.send(message);
1540 transport.close();
1541 } catch (Exception ex) {
1542 System.out.println(&quot;BuildMonitor failed to send email!&quot;);
1543 ex.printStackTrace();
1544 }
1545 }
1546
1547 /**
1548 * Parse a comma separated list of internet email addresses.
1549 *
1550 * @param s The list of addresses.
1551 * @return Array of Addresses.
1552 */
1553 protected Address[] parseAddresses(String s) throws Exception {
1554 StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(s, &quot;,&quot;);
1555 Address[] addrs = new Address[st.countTokens()];
1556
1557 for (int i = 0; i &lt; addrs.length; i++) {
1558 addrs[i] = new InternetAddress(st.nextToken());
1559 }
1560 return addrs;
1561 }
1562
1563 public void messageLogged(BuildEvent e) {
1564 }
1565
1566 public void targetStarted(BuildEvent e) {
1567 }
1568
1569 public void targetFinished(BuildEvent e) {
1570 }
1571
1572 public void taskStarted(BuildEvent e) {
1573 }
1574
1575 public void taskFinished(BuildEvent e) {
1576 }
1577}
1578</pre>
1579 <p>With a <code>monitor.properties</code> like this:</p>
1580 <pre class="code">
1581# configuration for build monitor
1582
1583mail.transport.protocol=smtp
1584mail.smtp.host=&lt;host&gt;
1585mail.from=Will Glozer &lt;[email protected]&gt;
1586
1587build.log=build.log
1588
1589build.failed.notify=true
1590[email protected]
1591build.failed.email.subject=Nightly build failed!
1592
1593build.succeeded.notify=true
1594[email protected]
1595build.succeeded.email.subject=Nightly build succeeded!
1596</pre>
1597 <p><code>monitor.properties</code> should be placed right next
1598 to your compiled <code>BuildMonitor.class</code>. To use it,
1599 invoke Ant like:</p>
1600 <pre class="code">
1601ant -listener BuildMonitor -logfile build.log
1602</pre>
1603 <p>Make sure that <code>mail.jar</code> from JavaMail and
1604 <code>activation.jar</code> from the
1605 <a href="http://java.sun.com/products/javabeans/glasgow/jaf.html">Java
1606 Beans Activation Framework</a> are in your <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
1607 <p class="faq">
1608 <a name="listener-properties"></a>
1609 How do I get at the properties that Ant was running
1610 with from inside BuildListener?
1611 </p>
1612 <p>You can get at a hashtable with all the properties that Ant
1613 has been using through the BuildEvent parameter. For
1614 example:</p>
1615 <pre class="code">
1616public void buildFinished(BuildEvent e) {
1617 Hashtable table = e.getProject().getProperties();
1618 String buildpath = (String)table.get(&quot;build.path&quot;);
1619 ...
1620}
1621</pre>
1622 <p>This is more accurate than just reading the same property
1623 files that your project does, since it will give the correct
1624 results for properties that were specified on the Ant command line.</p>
1625 <p class="faq">
1626 <a name="remove-cr"></a>
1627 &lt;chmod&gt; or &lt;exec&gt; doesn't work in Ant
1628 1.3 on Unix
1629 </p>
1630 <p>The <code>antRun</code> script in <code>ANT_HOME/bin</code>
1631 has DOS instead of Unix line endings; you must remove the
1632 carriage-return characters from this file. This can be done by
1633 using Ant's <code>&lt;fixcrlf&gt;</code> task
1634 or something like:</p>
1635 <pre class="code">
1636tr -d '\r' &lt; $ANT_HOME/bin/antRun &gt; /tmp/foo
1637mv /tmp/foo $ANT_HOME/bin/antRun
1638</pre>
1639 <p class="faq">
1640 <a name="javadoc-cannot-execute"></a>
1641 JavaDoc failed: java.io.IOException: javadoc: cannot execute
1642 </p>
1643 <p>There is a bug in the Solaris reference implementation of
1644 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>).
1645 This also appears to be true under Linux. Moving the JDK to
1646 the front of the PATH fixes the problem.</p>
1647 <p class="faq">
1648 <a name="delegating-classloader"></a>
1649 &lt;style&gt; or &lt;junit&gt; ignores my
1650 &lt;classpath&gt;
1651 </p>
1652 <p>Starting with Ant 1.7.0, &lt;junit&gt; will honor your
1653 nested &lt;classpath&gt;.</p>
1654 <p>These tasks don't ignore your classpath setting, you
1655 are facing a common problem with delegating classloaders.</p>
1656 <p>This question collects a common type of problem: A task
1657 needs an external library and it has a nested classpath
1658 element so that you can point it to this external library, but
1659 that doesn't work unless you put the external library
1660 into the <code>CLASSPATH</code> or place it in
1661 <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code>.</p>
1662 <p>Some background is necessary before we can discuss
1663 solutions for <a href="#delegating-classloader-1.5">Ant
1664 1.5.x</a> and <a href="#delegating-classloader-1.6">Ant
1665 1.6.x</a>.</p>
1666 <p>When you specify a nested <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> in
1667 Ant, Ant creates a new class loader that uses the path you
1668 have specified. It then tries to load additional classes from
1669 this classloader.</p>
1670 <p>In most cases - for example using &lt;style&gt; or
1671 &lt;junit&gt; - Ant doesn't load the external library
1672 directly, it is the loaded class that does so.</p>
1673 <p>In the case of <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> it is the task
1674 implementation itself and in the case of
1675 <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> it is the implementation of the
1676 <code>org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.XSLTLiaison</code>
1677 class.</p>
1678 <p><em>As of Ant 1.7</em> <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> no longer
1679 requires you to have <code>junit.jar</code> in Ant's startup
1680 classpath even if <code>ant-junit.jar</code> is present there.</p>
1681 <p>Ant's class loader implementation uses Java's
1682 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>
1683 the paragraph</p>
1684 <blockquote>The <code>ClassLoader</code> class uses a
1685 delegation model to search for classes and resources. Each
1686 instance of <code>ClassLoader</code> has an associated parent
1687 class loader. When called upon to find a class or resource, a
1688 <code>ClassLoader</code> instance will delegate the search for
1689 the class or resource to its parent class loader before
1690 attempting to find the class or resource itself. The virtual
1691 machine's built-in class loader, called the bootstrap
1692 class loader, does not itself have a parent but may serve as
1693 the parent of a <code>ClassLoader</code>
1694 instance.</blockquote>
1695 <p>The possible solutions depend on the version of Ant you
1696 use, see the next sections.</p>
1697 <p class="faq">
1698 <a name="delegating-classloader-1.5"></a>
1699 &lt;style&gt; or &lt;junit&gt; ignores my
1700 &lt;classpath&gt; - Ant 1.5.x version
1701 </p>
1702 <p>Please read <a href="#delegating-classloader">the previous
1703 entry</a> before you go ahead.</p>
1704 <p>First of all let's state that Ant's wrapper script
1705 (<code>ant</code> or <code>ant.bat</code>) adds all
1706 <code>.jar</code> files from <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code> to
1707 <code>CLASSPATH</code>, therefore "in
1708 <code>CLASSPATH</code>" shall mean "either in your
1709 <code>CLASSPATH</code> environment variable or
1710 <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code>" for the rest of this
1711 answer.</p>
1712 <p>The root of the problem is that the class that needs the
1713 external library is on the <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
1714 <p>Let's see what happens when you load the &lt;junit&gt;
1715 task. Ant's class loader will consult the
1716 bootstrap class loader first, which tries to load classes from
1717 <code>CLASSPATH</code>. The bootstrap class loader
1718 doesn't know anything about Ant's class loader or
1719 even the path you have specified.</p>
1720 <p>If the bootstrap class loader can load the class Ant has
1721 asked it to load (which it can if <code>optional.jar</code> is
1722 part of <code>CLASSPATH</code>), this class will try to load
1723 the external library from <code>CLASSPATH</code> as well - it
1724 doesn't know anything else - and will not find it unless
1725 the library is in <code>CLASSPATH</code> as well.</p>
1726 <p>To solve this, you have two major options:</p>
1727 <ol>
1728 <li>put all external libraries you need in
1729 <code>CLASSPATH</code> as well this is not what you want,
1730 otherwise you wouldn't have found this FAQ entry.</li>
1731
1732 <li>remove the class that loads the external library from
1733 the <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</li>
1734 </ol>
1735 <p>The easiest way to do this is to remove
1736 <code>optional.jar</code> from <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code>. If
1737 you do so, you will have to <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> all
1738 optional tasks and use nested <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code>
1739 elements in the <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> tasks that point
1740 to the new location of <code>optional.jar</code>. Also,
1741 don't forget to add the new location of
1742 <code>optional.jar</code> to the
1743 <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> of your
1744 <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> or <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code>
1745 task.</p>
1746 <p>If you want to avoid to <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> all
1747 optional tasks you need, the only other option is to remove
1748 the classes that should not be loaded via the bootstrap class
1749 loader from <code>optional.jar</code> and put them into a
1750 separate archive. Add this separate archive to the
1751 <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> of your
1752 <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> or <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> task
1753 - and make sure the separate archive is not in
1754 <code>CLASSPATH</code>.</p>
1755 <p>In the case of <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> you'd have
1756 to remove all classes that are in the
1757 <code>org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/junit</code>
1758 directory, in the <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> case it is one of
1759 the <code>*Liaison</code> classes in
1760 <code>org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional</code>.</p>
1761 <p>If you use the option to break up <code>optional.jar</code>
1762 for <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> or remove
1763 <code>ant-junit.jar</code>, you still have to use a
1764 <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> with a nested
1765 <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> to define the junit task.</p>
1766 <p class="faq">
1767 <a name="delegating-classloader-1.6"></a>
1768 &lt;style&gt; or &lt;junit&gt; ignores my
1769 &lt;classpath&gt; - Ant 1.6.x version
1770 </p>
1771 <p>Please read <a href="#delegating-classloader">the general
1772 entry</a> before you go ahead.</p>
1773 <p>The wrapper script of Ant 1.6.x no longer adds the contents
1774 of <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code> to <code>CLASSPATH</code>,
1775 instead Ant will create a classloader on top of the bootstrap
1776 classloader - let's call it the coreloader for the rest of
1777 this answer - which holds the contents of
1778 <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code>. Ant's core and its tasks will be
1779 loaded through this classloader and not the bootstrap
1780 classloader.</p>
1781 <p>This causes some small but notable differences between Ant
1782 1.5.x and 1.6.x. Most importantly, a third-party task that is
1783 part of <code>CLASSPATH</code> will no longer work in Ant
1784 1.6.x since the task now can't find Ant's classes. In a sense
1785 this is the same problem this entry is about, only
1786 <code>ant.jar</code> has become the external library in
1787 question now.</p>
1788 <p>This coreloader also holds the contents of
1789 <code>~/.ant/lib</code> and any file or directory that has
1790 been specified using Ant's <code>-lib</code> command line
1791 argument.</p>
1792 <p>Let's see what happens when you load the &lt;junit&gt;
1793 task. Ant's class loader will consult the bootstrap
1794 class loader first, which tries to load classes from
1795 <code>CLASSPATH</code>. The bootstrap class loader
1796 doesn't know anything about Ant's class loader or
1797 even the path you have specified. If it fails to find the
1798 class using the bootstrap classloader it will try the
1799 coreloader next. Again, the coreloader doesn't know anything
1800 about your path.</p>
1801 <p>If the coreloader can load the class Ant has asked it to
1802 load (which it can if <code>ant-junit.jar</code> is in
1803 <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code>), this class will try to load the
1804 external library from coreloader as well - it doesn't
1805 know anything else - and will not find it unless the library
1806 is in <code>CLASSPATH</code> or the coreloader as well.</p>
1807 <p>To solve this, you have the following major options:</p>
1808 <ol>
1809 <li>put all external libraries you need in
1810 <code>CLASSPATH</code> as well this is not what you want,
1811 otherwise you wouldn't have found this FAQ entry.</li>
1812
1813 <li>put all external libraries you need in
1814 <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code> or <code>.ant/lib</code>. This
1815 probably still isn't what you want, but you might reconsider
1816 the <code>.ant/lib</code> option.</li>
1817
1818 <li>Always start Ant with the <code>-lib</code> command line
1819 switch and point to your external libraries (or the
1820 directories holding them).</li>
1821
1822 <li>remove the class that loads the external library from
1823 the coreloader.</li>
1824 </ol>
1825 <p>In Ant 1.6 <code>optional.jar</code> has been split into
1826 multiple jars, each one containing classes with the same
1827 dependencies on external libraries. You can move the
1828 "offending" jar out of <code>ANT_HOME/lib</code>. For the
1829 <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code> task it would be
1830 <code>ant-junit.jar</code> and for <code>&lt;style&gt;</code>
1831 it would be <code>ant-trax.jar</code>
1832 or <code>ant-xslp.jar</code> -
1833 depending on the processor you use.</p>
1834 <p>If you do so, you will have to <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code>
1835 all optional tasks that need the external library and use
1836 nested <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> elements in the
1837 <code>&lt;taskdef&gt;</code> tasks that point to the new
1838 location of <code>ant-*.jar</code>. Also, don't forget
1839 to add the new location of <code>ant-*.jar</code> to the
1840 <code>&lt;classpath&gt;</code> of your
1841 <code>&lt;style&gt;</code> or <code>&lt;junit&gt;</code>
1842 task.</p>
1843 <p>For example</p>
1844 <pre class="code">
1845 &lt;taskdef name=&quot;junit&quot;
1846 class=&quot;org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.optional.junit.JUnitTask&quot;&gt;
1847 &lt;classpath&gt;
1848 &lt;pathelement location=&quot;HOME-OF/junit.jar&quot;/&gt;
1849 &lt;pathelement location=&quot;NEW-HOME-OF/ant-junit.jar&quot;/&gt;
1850 &lt;/classpath&gt;
1851 &lt;/taskdef&gt;
1852</pre>
1853 <p class="faq">
1854 <a name="winxp-jdk14-ant14"></a>
1855 When running Ant 1.4 on Windows XP and JDK 1.4, I get
1856 various errors when trying to <code>&lt;exec&gt;</code>, fork
1857 <code>&lt;java&gt;</code> or access environment
1858 variables.
1859 </p>
1860 <p>Ant &lt; 1.5 doesn't recognize Windows XP as a flavor
1861 of Windows that runs <code>CMD.EXE</code> instead of
1862 <code>COMMAND.COM</code>. JDK 1.3 will tell Ant that Windows
1863 XP is Windows 2000 so the problem doesn't show up
1864 there.</p>
1865 <p>Apart from upgrading to Ant 1.5 or better, setting the
1866 environment variable <code>ANT_OPTS</code> to
1867 <code>-Dos.name=Windows_NT</code> prior to invoking Ant has
1868 been confirmed as a workaround.</p>
1869 <p class="faq">
1870 <a name="1.5-cygwin-sh"></a>
1871 The <code>ant</code> wrapper script of Ant 1.5 fails
1872 for Cygwin if <code>ANT_HOME</code> is set to a Windows style
1873 path.
1874 </p>
1875 <p>This problem has been reported only hours after Ant 1.5 has
1876 been released, see <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10664">Bug
1877 10664</a> and all its duplicates.</p>
1878 <p>A fixed version of the wrapper script can be found <a href="http://ant.apache.org/old-releases/v1.5/errata/">here</a>.
1879 Simply replace your script with this version.</p>
1880 <p class="faq">
1881 <a name="1.5.2-zip-broken"></a>
1882 <code>&lt;zip&gt;</code> is broken in Ant 1.5.2.
1883 </p>
1884 <p>Yes, it is.</p>
1885 <p>The problem reported by most people - see <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17648">Bug
1886 17648</a> and all its duplicates - is that Ant creates
1887 archives that a partially unreadable by WinZIP. Luckily
1888 <code>jar</code> deals with the archives and so the generated
1889 jars/wars/ears will most likely work for you anyway.</p>
1890 <p>There are additional problems, see bugs <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17780">Bug
1891 17780</a>, <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=17871">Bug
1892 17871</a> and <a href="http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=18403">Bug
1893 18403</a>. All of them are supposed to be fixed with Ant
1894 1.5.3 (and only 18403 should exist in 1.5.3beta1).</p>
1895 <p class="faq">
1896 <a name="unknownelement.taskcontainer"></a>
1897
1898 Why do my custom task containers see Unknown Elements in Ant 1.6
1899 - they worked in Ant 1.5?
1900
1901 </p>
1902 <p>
1903 The objects added in TaskContainer.addTask(Task task)
1904 have changed from Tasks to UnknownElements.
1905 </p>
1906 <p>
1907 There was a number of valid reasons for this change. But the backward
1908 compatibility problems were not noticed until after Ant 1.6.0 was
1909 released.
1910 </p>
1911 <p>
1912 Your container class will need to be modified to check if the Task
1913 is an UnknownElement and call perform on it to
1914 convert it to a Task and to execute it.
1915 (see apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.Sequential)
1916 </p>
1917 <p>
1918 If you want to do more processing on the task,
1919 you need to use the techniques in apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.Antlib#execute()
1920 This does make use of one 1.6 method call (UE#getRealObject()),
1921 you need to use UE#getTask() instead - this will
1922 return null for non tasks (types like fileset id=x).
1923 </p>
1924 <p>
1925 So.. iterate over the tasks, if they are UEs, convert them to
1926 tasks, using UE#maybeConfigure and UE#getTask()
1927 </p>
1928 <pre class="code">
1929 for (Iterator i = tasks.iterator(); i.hasNext();) {
1930 Task t = (Task) i.next();
1931 if (t instanceof UnknownElement) {
1932 ((UnknownElement) t).maybeConfigure();
1933 t = ((UnknownElement) t).getTask();
1934 if (t == null) {
1935 continue;
1936 }
1937 }
1938 // .... original Custom code
1939 }
1940 </pre>
1941 <p>
1942 This approach should work for ant1.5 and ant1.6.
1943 </p>
1944 <p class="faq">
1945 <a name="java.exception.stacktrace"></a>
1946
1947 The program I run via &lt;java&gt; throws an exception but I
1948 can't seem to get the full stack trace.
1949
1950 </p>
1951 <p>This is a know bug that has been fixed after the release of
1952 Ant 1.6.1.</p>
1953 <p>As a workaround, run your &lt;java&gt; task with
1954 <code>fork="true"</code> and Ant will display the full
1955 trace.</p>
1956 <p class="faq">
1957 <a name="junit-no-runtime-xml"></a>
1958
1959 Using format="xml", &lt;junit&gt; fails with a
1960 <code>NoClassDefFoundError</code> if forked.
1961
1962 </p>
1963 <p>The XML formatter needs the <a href="http://www.w3.org/DOM/">DOM classes</a> to work. If you
1964 are using JDK 1.4 or later they are included with your Java
1965 Runtime and this problem won't occur. If you are running JDK
1966 1.3 or earlier, the DOM classes have to be on your
1967 &lt;junit&gt; task's &lt;classpath&gt;.</p>
1968 <p>Prior to Ant 1.6.0 Ant would include the DOM classes from
1969 the XML parser that is used by Ant itself if you set the
1970 includeAntRuntime attribute to true (the default). With Ant
1971 1.6.0 this has been changed as this behavior made it
1972 impossible to use a different XML parser in your tests.</p>
1973 <p>This means that you have to take care of the DOM classes
1974 explicitly starting with Ant 1.6.0. If you don't need to set
1975 up a different XML parser for your tests, the easiest solution
1976 is to add</p>
1977 <pre class="code">
1978&lt;pathelement path=&quot;${ant.home}/lib/xml-apis.jar:${ant.home}/lib/xercesImpl.jar&quot;/&gt;
1979</pre>
1980 <p>to your task's &lt;classpath&gt;.</p>
1981 <p class="faq">
1982 <a name="xalan-jdk1.5"></a>
1983
1984 <code>&lt;junitreport&gt;</code> doesn't work with JDK 1.5 but
1985 worked fine with JDK 1.4.
1986
1987 </p>
1988 <p>While JDK 1.4.x contains a version of Xalan-J 2, JDK 1.5
1989 (and later?) have <a href="http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/compatibility.html#4959783">moved
1990 to XSLTC</a>. Since this task uses Xalan's redirect
1991 extensions for its internal stylesheet, Ant prior to 1.6.2 didn't support
1992 XSLTC. This means that you have to install <a href="http://xml.apache.org/xalan-j/">Xalan-J 2</a> in order
1993 to use this task with JDK 1.5 in older versions of Ant.</p>
1994 <p>Starting with Ant 1.6.2 <code>&lt;junitreport&gt;</code>
1995 supports JDK 1.5.</p>
1996 </div>
1997 </div>
1998
1999 <p class="copyright">
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