That's exactly what Ant does for you...it looks at the source files and only passes the ones to javac which are more recent than their corresponding class files. Try it!
Ah, that works only if you have: 1 class per source file, and the location of source files in the source tree is the same as class files in the class tree. I was using a more shotgun approach to building, with multiple source files in a common directory, in potentially different packages, letting the javac compiler sort things out. Has anybody started working on an IDE or at least a tool that generates ant build files? Seems like a good idea.
I've written a tool that lets you glue together multiple disjoint directory hierarchies, and jar files (it's called jlink). I want to integrate jlink into ant potentially. The one thing I'm trying to understand is how to hook together dependencies. If the inputs to jlink are a directory and a text file, how can I communicate those dependencies so that ant won't rebuild the final target?
- Patrick --
// Patrick C. Beard // Java Runtime Enthusiast -- "Will invoke interfaces for food." // mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
