At 10:43 31/7/00 -0700, you wrote:
>I'm interested in a couple of ideas that are somewhat along the lines
>of what XSLT (XSL Transformations) is supposed to support. I'd like
>to be able to define tasks in XML that correspond to combinations of
>other tasks. For example, to build a tool for JShell, I have the
>following generic pattern:
there has been a demand for similar things in ant recently.
>What I'd really like to do is to define a task, say "buildtool" that
>would be composed of sub-tasks, mkdir, javac, and jlink. Of course,
>I'd want to define a jlink subtask in terms of exec, as I've done
>above. Is this possible with ant currently?
yes as you have done it above but as a more complex approach is noyt possible.
>Another idea I'd like to explore is using Rhino JavaScript (big
>surprise) to provide scripting within a build.xml file. We could then
>define additional tasks dynamically in terms of scripts. Much of the
>currently built-in tasks could be recast in terms of scripts, where
>appropriate.
actually that is already possible. The BSF is used in script task to offer
said functionality. From one of Sam Rubies posts :
<project name="squares" default="main" basedir=".">
<target name="setup">
<script language="javascript"> <![CDATA[
for (i=1; i<=10; i++) {
echo = squares.createTask("echo");
main.addTask(echo);
echo.setMessage(i*i);
}
]]> </script>
</target>
<target name="main" depends="setup" />
</project>
Cheers,
Pete
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