CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaantbuild-processbuildbuild-automation
user163947
user163947

Reputation:

Change default ant target by command line argument

I'm recently assigned a task to make ant be able to build war packages for different environments. I'm almost done except one feature.

The ant accepts an env parameter by like -Denv=DEV, and use different configuration files to make the war package. But the default target is start which will build, deploy and start the tomcat. I don't want ant to deploy the war neither start the server when I pass in the -Denv=PROD arg. I only want ant to build the ROOT.war. It's enough.

I know I can just type one more word to achieve this goal, but you know we are all lazy. :D

Does anyone know how to change the default target according to the command line argument? My requirements are as below:

  1. ant -Denv=DEV will build, deploy, and start the server
  2. ant -Denv=PROD will only build the ROOT.war

Upvotes: 3

Views: 10174

Answers (4)

Siwei
Siwei

Reputation: 21557

OK I give up.

after using Ruby/Rails or other morden tools, I found ant is hard to use.

you don't need to learn how to run native command in Ant, just write a bash script to run ant and mixed command lines, such as:

# my_run.sh

ant package  # assume you have this target in build.xml
cp target.war /opt/tomcat/webapps   # copy this file to tomcat
/opt/tomcat/bin/shutdown.sh   # restart tomcat 
/opt/tomcat/bin/startup.sh

Upvotes: 0

krock
krock

Reputation: 29619

You could also load different property files based on the env property:

<property file="${env}.properties"/>

and in there configure which target to call:

in DEV.properties:

default.target=dev.build

in PROD.properties:

default.target=prod.build

and then call the target based on the property:

<target name="default">
    <antcall target="${default.target}"/>
</target>

<target name="dev.build">
    ....
</target>

<target name="prod.build">
    ....
</target>

by specifying separate property files for each build type you will make it easy to configure other aspects of the build.

Upvotes: 3

Stephen C
Stephen C

Reputation: 718886

I suggest that you define targets in your build.xml file called "DEV" and "PROD" and then invoke Ant as:

ant DEV

or 

ant PROD

If you want to stick with your current approach of using a system property to select the target, then @krock's answer seems to be the way to go. (But I don't see any advantage in that approach though.)

Upvotes: 6

Nikolaus Gradwohl
Nikolaus Gradwohl

Reputation: 20124

there is an "if"-Task in the ant-contrib collection. Using this you can define a default task, that tests for your parameter and calls the required tasks. You could also define a default behaviour if the dev param is not set.

Upvotes: 0

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