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1<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN" "strict.dtd">
2<HTML>
3 <HEAD>
4 <TITLE>Ant Specification, version 0.5</TITLE>
5 </HEAD>
6 <BODY>
7 <H1>Ant Specification</H1>
8 <P>Version 0.5 (2000/04/20)</P>
9 <P>This document specifies the behavior of Ant. At this time, this is a
10 working document with no implementation. It is hoped that this specification
11 will lead to a simplier and more consistent implementation of Ant.</P>
12 <P>This document is not intended to be used as an end user manual or user
13 guide to Ant. To adequatly explain the concepts herein in a way appropriate to
14 such a use would potentially complicate this document.</P>
15 <H2>Design Goals</H2>
16 <P>The following are the overall design goals of Ant:</P>
17 <UL>
18 <LI>Simplicity</LI>
19 <LI>Understandability</LI>
20 <LI>Extensibility</LI>
21 </UL>
22 <H3>Simplicity</H3>
23 <P>Ant must be simple to use. Of course, as the definition of simple varies
24 according to the audience of the program. For Ant, since it is a build tool
25 aimed at programmers, the goal is to be simple to use for a competent
26 programmer.</P>
27 <H3>Understandability</H3>
28 <P>Ant must be clearly understandible for a first time as well as a veteran
29 user. This means that a new user should be able to use Ant comfortably the
30 first time and understand how to modify a build file by looking at it. And it
31 should not require much experience with Ant to understand how it works and how
32 to configure it for particular situtations.</P>
33 <H3>Extensibility</H3>
34 <P>Ant must be easy to extend. The API used to extend Ant must be easy to
35 use and the way in which these extensions are located and used by the core
36 runtime should be clear.</P>
37 <H2>Conceptual Overview</H2>
38 <P>This is a conceptual overview of the components used by Ant. Full APIs
39 will be defined later.</P>
40 <H3>Project</H3>
41 <P>The base unit of work in Ant is the <STRONG>Project</STRONG>. A Project
42 is defined by an editable text file and is represented by an object of type
43 <CODE>org.apache.ant.Project</CODE> at runtime.</P>
44 <P>A Project is a collection of <STRONG>Properties</STRONG> and
45 <STRONG>Targets</STRONG>.</P>
46 <H3>Properties</H3>
47 <P>Properties are mutable name-value pairs that are scoped to the Project
48 and held in a table. Only one pair is allowed per name. It is anticipated that
49 this data structure would be of type <CODE>java.util.Properties</CODE> or a type that has approximatly
50 the same contract.</P>
51 <P>Properties can be defined in a hierarchical manner. The order of
52 precidence in this hiearchy is:</P>
53 <UL>
54 <LI>Properties defined on the command line or via a GUI tool</LI>
55 <LI>Properties defined in the text file which defines the project.</LI>
56 <LI>Properties defined in a file in the users <CODE>user.home</CODE> directory</LI>
57 <LI>Properties defined in the installation directory that can be shared
58 by multiple users.</LI>
59 </UL>
60 <P>Note: The current version of Ant allows the System property list to be
61 consulted for a return value if the property list doesn't satisfy the requested
62 property name. As all Java code has access to the system property list via the
63 <CODE>java.lang.System</CODE> class, this functionality is considered to be confusing and to be
64 removed.</P>
65 <P>Note: The current version of Ant allows property substitution to be
66 performed in the project file. This functionality is being removed.</P>
67 <H3>Targets</H3>
68 <P>Targets are ordered collections of <STRONG>Tasks</STRONG>, units of work
69 to be performed if a Target is executed. </P>
70 <P>Targets can define dependancies on other Targets within the Project. If
71 a Target is deemed to be executed, either directly on the command line, or via
72 a dependancy from some other Target, then all of its dependencies must first be
73 executed. Circular depenancies are resolved by examination of the dependancy
74 stack when a Target is evaluated. If a dependancy is already on the stack of
75 targets to be executed, then the dependancy is considered to have been
76 satisfied.</P>
77 <P>After all dependancies of a Target have been satisfied, all of the Tasks
78 contained by the target are configured and executed in sequential order. </P>
79 <H3>Tasks</H3>
80 <P>A Task is a unit of work. When a Task is to be executed, an instance of
81 the class that defines the behavior of the particular task specified is
82 instantiated and then configured. This class implements the <CODE>org.apache.ant.Task</CODE> interface.
83 It is then executed so that it may be able to perform its function. It is
84 important to note that this configuration occurs just before execution of the
85 task, and after execution of any previous tasks, so that configuration
86 information that was modified by any other Task can be properly set.</P>
87 <P>When a Task is executed, it is provided access to the object
88 representing the Project it is running in allowing it to examine the Property
89 list of the project and access to various methods needed to operate.</P>
90 <H2>Task Jar Layout</H2>
91 <P>Tasks are defined within Java Archive files. The name of the JAR
92 determines the name under which the task is known by in the system. For
93 example, if a Task JAR is named mvdir.jar, the task is known to the system as
94 <CODE>&quot;mvdir&quot;</CODE>.</P>
95 <P><EM>Question: Should we say that tasks belong in a JAR file with the
96 .tsk extension?</EM></P>
97 <P>The class within the Jar file that implements the <CODE>org.apache.ant.Task</CODE> interface is
98 specified by a manifest attribute named <CODE>Ant-Task-Class</CODE> in the Jar manifest. An example
99 manifest would look like:</P>
100 <PRE> Manifest-Version: 1.0
101 Ant-Task-Class: org.apache.ant.task.javac.JavacTask</PRE>
102 <P>When the task is used by Ant, a class loader is created that reads
103 classes from the JAR file. This ensures that there is no chance of namespace
104 collision in the classes of various task JAR files.</P>
105 <H2>Installation</H2>
106 <P>When Ant is installed on a user system, it installs a directory
107 structure with the following form:</P>
108 <PRE>&lt;installdir&gt;/ant (unix shell script)
109 /ant.bat
110 /ant.jar
111 /ant.properties
112 /tasks/[task jar files]
113 /docs/[documentation]
114 /README</PRE>
115 <P>Note: Current Jakarta practice is to name the Unix shell script with a
116 .sh extension. This goes against Unix conventions and is unecessary. Testing
117 has shown that the leaving the extension off on Unix will not interfere with
118 the working of the Windows batch file.</P>
119 <P>Note: The ant.jar file has been moved from the lib/ directory and placed
120 alongside the shell startup scripts (which have also been moved out of the bin/
121 directory). This is because on windows platforms, the .jar file is an
122 executable file of sorts.</P>
123 <H3>Ant Properties</H3>
124 <P>The <CODE>ant.properties</CODE> file contains a list of all the properties that should be
125 set by default when ant is run. In addition there are a few special properties
126 that are used directly by ant. An example of these properties in use is:</P>
127 <PRE> system.taskdir=tasks/
128 user.taskdir=anttasks/</PRE>
129 <P>The <CODE>system.taskdir</CODE> property sets where the system looks for Java ARchive files
130 containing tasks. If this property defines a relative path, then the path is
131 taken as relative from the installation directory.</P>
132 <P>The <CODE>user.taskdir</CODE> property defines where users can locate Java Archive files
133 containing tasks. If this property defines a realtive path, then the path is
134 taken as relative from the users home directory (as defined by the <CODE>user.home</CODE>
135 system property). Task JAR files in this directory take precendence of those in
136 the system directory.</P>
137 <P>Note: <EM>It has been suggested to add a properties file hook to the
138 command line to roll in props. Pending investigation.</EM></P>
139 <H3>User Preferences</H3>
140 <P>In addition to the Ant installation directory, an <CODE>ant.properties</CODE> file can be
141 located in the user's home directory (as found by the system property <CODE>user.home</CODE>)
142 which can define user preferences such as the location of a user tasks
143 directory. Properties defined in this file take precidence over those set in
144 the installation's <CODE>ant.properties</CODE> file. Such a file could look like:</P>
145 <PRE> user.taskdir=anttasks/
146 javac.debug=off</PRE>
147 <P>Properties starting with <CODE>&quot;system.&quot;</CODE> in the user's <CODE>ant.properties</CODE> file are not
148 allowed and must cause a warning to be thrown.</P>
149 <H2>Project Configuration</H2>
150 <P>Ant's Project text file is structured using XML and reflects the
151 structure of the various components described in the Conceptual Overview.</P>
152 <P>A sample Project file:</P>
153 <PRE>&lt;project name=&quot;projectname&quot; defaulttarget=&quot;main&quot; taskdir=&quot;tasks/&quot;&gt;
154 &lt;property name=&quot;javac.debug&quot; value=&quot;on&quot;/&gt;
155 &lt;target name=&quot;main&quot;&gt;
156 &lt;taskimpl ...&gt;
157 ...
158 &lt;/taskimpl&gt;
159 &lt;/target&gt;
160&lt;/project&gt;</PRE>
161 <H3>The Project Element</H3>
162 <P>The <CODE>project</CODE> element has the following required attributes:</P>
163 <UL>
164 <LI><CODE><STRONG>defaulttarget</STRONG></CODE> defining the default target to be executed if no other target
165 is specified when Ant is run</LI>
166 </UL>
167 <P>It also has the following optional allowed attributes:</P>
168 <UL>
169 <LI><CODE><CODE><STRONG>name</STRONG></CODE></CODE> defining a name for this project</LI>
170 <LI><CODE><STRONG>taskdir</STRONG></CODE> defining a directory in which project specific tasks can be
171 located. Tasks in this directory take precedence over those in the either the
172 user taskdir or the installation taskdir.</LI>
173 </UL>
174 <P>The following elements are allowed as children of the project
175 element:</P>
176 <UL>
177 <LI><CODE><STRONG>property</STRONG></CODE> defining a property scoped to the project</LI>
178 <LI><CODE><STRONG>target</STRONG></CODE> defining a target</LI>
179 </UL>
180 <H3>The Property Element</H3>
181 <P>asdf</P>
182 <H3>The Target Element</H3>
183 <P>asfd</P>
184 <H2>Configuration of Tasks</H2>
185 <P>The Task section of the configuration file is structured as such:</P>
186 <PRE> &lt;[taskname] [attname=value] [attname=value]...]&gt;
187 [&lt;[elementname] [attname=value] ...&gt; ... &lt;/[elementname]&gt;]
188 &lt;/[taskname]&gt;</PRE>
189 <P>The taskname is used to find the class of the Task. Once the class has
190 been located and an instance of it created, all of the attributes of the Task
191 are reflected into the task instance using bean patterns. For example, if a
192 Task contains an attribute named &quot;directory&quot;, the method named
193 setDirectory would be called with the attribute value cast to the appropriate
194 type desired by the method. <EM>(What to do if the type isn't a file or a
195 simple type, look for the class and see if it has a setString method?)</EM></P>
196
197 <P>Text blocks contained by the element are added to task using an addText
198 method. <EM>Place an example...</EM></P>
199 <P>For each element contained in the Task definition, an addElementname
200 method is found on the task. The parameter type of the method defines an object
201 that will be loaded and instantiated. The attributes of the element are
202 reflected into the object using bean methods. Any text is set using the addText
203 method. Any elements are recursed in the same fashion.</P>
204 <P>Search order of tasks.... project/user/system</P>
205 <H2>Command Line</H2>
206 <P>The command line utility provided with Ant must support the following
207 allowable syntax:</P>
208 <P><CODE>ant projectfile [prop=value [prop=value...]] [target]</CODE></P>
209 <P>Internally, the command line shell scripts should call the <CODE>org.apache.ant.Main</CODE> class
210 with the following arguments:</P>
211 <PRE>java -Dant.home=installdir org.apache.ant.Main $*</PRE>
212 <P>or its equivalent on the host platform. Note that the ant installation
213 directory is a System property. The above syntax results in ant.home being
214 placed in the System property list.</P>
215 <P>Note: <EM>On unix, finding the directory of the script that was launched
216 is relatively easy. However on Windows, I'm not sure the best way of handling
217 this.</EM></P>
218 <H2>File Naming Conventions</H2>
219 <P>File naming in a cross platform tool is tricky. For maximum portability
220 and understandiblity it is recommended that project files use the following
221 conventions:</P>
222 <UL>
223 <LI>The '/' character is used as a directory seperator</LI>
224 <LI>The ':' character is used as a path seperator</LI>
225 <LI>Only relative paths are used</LI>
226 </UL>
227 <P>However, to allow for maximum flexibility and to allow project authors
228 to use conventions that make sense on their native platform, Ant allows for a
229 representation of file names which has the following rules:</P>
230 <UL>
231 <LI>Directories are seperated by the forward slash ('/') or backwards
232 slash ('\') character.</LI>
233 <LI>File names starting with either of the above directory seperators are
234 considered to be absolute paths.</LI>
235 <LI>On systems that support multiple file roots (e.g. Windows), a file
236 name that starts with a single alphabetical character followed by a colon (':')
237 followed by a directory seperator defines an absolute path where the letter
238 corresponds with a directory root.</LI>
239 <LI>File names starting with any other character are considered to be
240 relative paths. In project files, all relative paths are resolved relative to
241 the directory in which the project file is located.</LI>
242 </UL>
243 <P>Absolute paths are not recommended for build files as they reduce the
244 ability to share a project between u sers or machines.</P>
245 <P>In situtations where a set of filenames need to be specified, such as
246 defining a classpath, both the colon (':') andsemicolon (';') are allowable
247 characters to seperate each filename. The only case that has to be
248 disambiguated is if a user specifies paths that contain windows style absolute
249 paths. In this case, the colon is not treated as a path seperator if the
250 following rules are met:</P>
251 <UL>
252 <LI>The character two places before the colon is either of the allowable
253 path seperators (':' or ';') or if the colon is the second character of the
254 string.</LI>
255 <LI>The character immediately before the colon is a alphabetic character
256 in the range a-z or A-Z.</LI>
257 <LI>The character immediately after the colon is either of the allowable
258 directory seperators ('/' or '\').</LI>
259 </UL>
260 <H2>Scripting Model</H2>
261 <P>Sam, I'm leaving this to you. </P>
262 <H2>Runtime Requirements</H2>
263 <P>The following requirements are system requirements that Ant should have
264 in order to run correctly. We should not bundle in any of these into the
265 distribution of ant.</P>
266 <UL>
267 <LI>JDK 1.1 or greater</LI>
268 <LI>A JAXP compliant parser on the classpath</LI>
269 </UL>
270 <P>Note: <EM>When running on JDK 1.2 or greater, the tools.jar isn't on the
271 classpath by default. There's a few different ways we can take care of this.
272 One is to put it on the classpath in the execute script (I don't like this
273 one). Another is to find the location of tools.jar at runtime and put it on the
274 classpath of class loaders that load in task.jars so that, at least in the
275 scope of the Tasks, the relevant classes are there. </EM></P>
276 <P></P>
277 <P></P> </BODY>
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