Can we discuss this further? I would like to know if this is
something we want done up for Jakarta's web-site. If so, it
would be a little more meaningful than the +1's I got from Sam,
Peter, Giacomo, Paul, and more. I even got some constructive
criticism to make it a little better.
Is this the standard we want to uphold officially?
Berin Loritsch wrote:
>
> I recently proposed a build.xml standardization, and mostly
> it has been well received. I have gotten a few comments when
> I posted it to the Avalon team, and so I would like to present
> the proposal in its entirety (with the slight modifications)
> here. I will mark the updated lines with a bar ('|') on the
> right margin. You will need a wide window for this one as
> a brief description of the change was put after the change
> marker. Please post your comments. This is something that
> should be on Jakarta's site soon. It would be nice to get a
> standard we all agree on.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I propose that we all use a standard target convention for
> all Ant based projects. This is something that helps adopters
> of GNU software all over. A person who has never seen GNOME
> or GCC knows they can compile it by running "./configure"
> and "make all check install". These conventions make it
> easier for the newbie to come up to a fresh project and
> get it to compile.
>
> One of the reasons I have come up with the proposal is that
> every project has its own conventions. I have been involved
> in at least seven Apache projects in some capacity or another
> and have contributed code to four of them. They each have
> different conventions. One of the ways I work is building
> the project completely fresh before testing--I uncover more
> bugs that way. I would very much like to run "./build clean all"
> but most projects have a different target name for the default
> build target. Already most projects use the following target
> names: "clean", "docs", "dist", and "javadocs". Most "clean"
> targets leave some artifacts behind, and only a couple projects
> have the concept of "distclean".
>
> I propose we borrow a number of conventions from the GNU
> "make" utility manual
> (http://www.gnu.org/manual/make-3.79.1/html_chapter/make_14.html).
>
> If a program can be installed, then a build file must
> use these properties (which can be overridden by a user's
> .ant.properties file). The properties and default values follow: | (.antrc was
>the wrong file)
>
> * install.dir=.
> * install.bin.dir=${install.dir}/bin
> * install.lib.dir=${install.dir}/lib
> * install.data.dir=${install.dir}/conf
> * install.doc.dir=${install.dir}/docs
>
> By using these properties, Ant is able to customize how the
> program is installed and filter the scripts to point to the
> proper jars, etc.
>
> The standard targets I propose we all adopt are similar to
> the Make utility conventions ('all' is the default target):
>
> 'all'
> This is the default target. There was a suggestion to | (Copy
>suggestion from
> have 'main' be the default target so that by default a | Leo
>Simmons for a 'main'
> project can have it call 'all check' or whatever. If that | target as
>the default)
> is allowed, then the 'main' target must call this target. |
> Compiles the program with debugging enabled by default.
> This target is not required to build documentation. Standard
> compilation properties and defaults are:
> * build.debug=on
> * build.optimize=off
> (build.optimize can be set to 'on' for releases, but debug | (additional
> information is invaluable for reporting bugs--only someone | reasoning
>for
> who knows what they are doing should turn it off) | debug
>setting)
> 'install'
> This target ensures that everything is built, including
> documentation. It then copies the files in the corresponding
> directories already mentioned above. All jars should be
> considered libraries, and scripts should be provided to run
> them. If installation is not provided by a project, the
> build script should display a message to that effect. Optionally,
> {build.optimize} could be set to "on" for this target.
> 'uninstall'
> This target removes all the project files from the afformentioned
> directories. IMPORTANT: The uninstall script should NOT
> assume that the {install.[*].dir} directories are direct decendants
> of the {install.dir} directory. If installation is not provided
> by the project, the build script should display a message to
> that effect.
> 'clean'
> This target deletes all files that are generated by the build
> process--but does not delete files used to configure the build
> process.
> 'distclean'
> This deletes all files that are left from clean and returns the
> project to its distributed state.
> 'docs'
> This generates all documentation for a project. This includes
> user docs and javadocs. If there are no user docs, then we just |
>(Clarification for
> generate the javadocs. | action
>with no user docs)
> 'javadocs'
> This simply generates the javadocs for the project.
> **Suggestion (from Leo Simmons): | (Copy
>suggestion from
> provide standardized build property for including additional | Leo
>Simmons. It is worth
> location for javadocs so links resolve correctly. |
>considering)
> 'printerdocs'
> This generates a printer friendly version of the documentation.
> Most projects dynamically build their documentation from XML
> anyway. They should provide a nice and simple stylesheet that
> avoids all the HTML tables embedded in tables approach most
> site docs use. If there are no user docs, then we do nothing. |
>(Clarification for
> This target is only meant for user docs. | action
>with no user docs)
> 'dist'
> This target should be used for generating all the artifacts used
> for a distribution. That means the tar ball and zip file used to
> distribute projects, and any dynamically generated announcement
> files.
> 'check'
> This target is used to compile and execute any tests that | (remove
>the word 'unit')
> are built into the project. If a project likes the target name | (Optional
>alias of 'test')
> 'test', they can make it an alias to this target. |
>
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