I'm wondering about allowing tasks to be "skipped" if the tasks they are dependent on do nothing. Lets say I have three targets, A, B, and C. C is dependent on A and B. A compiles my source files to a classes directory, B copies over the manifest and/or the deployment descriptor C jars them up. If A doesn't compile any files and B doesn't copy over the files because they haven't changed, I would prefer that C not jar.
If memory serves me correctly having the jar task verify all the dates doesn't get you much until you have a large number of files, but it seems to me maybe there would be a way to "infer" that since A and B did nothing, C should do nothing too? Anyway to do this now? Any reason someone shouldn't try to add this functionality if it doesn't already exists? Erik Meade
