"include"

[J. Michael Caine]

hi.  i just downloaded ant a couple of days ago.  i quite like it!

i have a number of projects that follow a pretty well-defined paradigm, so
i'm using a template.xml file to "factor out" commonalities in the project
build.xml files.  i essentially "include" this template using the <ant> task
(see example below).

this is a little redundant (a target like [template/init] is entered twice)
and a bit awkward.  could it be worth considering a tag called <include>,
under <project> and parallel with <target>?  it could be placed above all of
the <target>s for a given project and would effectively "include" all of the
targets in the included .xml file.

currently, my template looks something like:

<project name="template" default="compile" basedir="/development">
  <target name="init">
    <tstamp/>
    <property name="sources" value="${basedir}/sources"/>
    <property name="builds" value="${basedir}/builds"/>
    <property name="distributions" value="${basedir}/distributions"/>
    <property name="distjardir" value="${basedir}/temp/distjar"/>
    <property name="jarexclude" value="**/*.properties,**/*.policy"/>
    <property name="rootdistdir"
value="${distributions}/${project}${version}"/>
    <property name="distdir"
value="${distributions}/${project}${version}/${project}"/>
    <property name="docdir" value="${distdir}/${project}/doc"/>
  </target>

  <target name="compile" depends="init">
    <mkdir dir="${builds}"/>
    <javac srcdir="${sources}" destdir="${builds}"
     includes="${project}/**" excludes="${project}/*.xml"/>
  </target>

  <target name="dist" depends="compile">
    <mkdir dir="${distjardir}"/>
    <copydir src="${builds}" dest="${distjardir}" includes="${project}/**"/>
    <mkdir dir="${distdir}"/>
    <jar jarfile="${distdir}/${project}.jar" basedir="${distjardir}"
     excludes="${jarexclude}"/>
    <copydir src="${distjardir}" dest="${rootdistdir}"
includes="${jarexclude}"/>
  </target>

  <target name="doc" depends="init">
    <mkdir dir="${docdir}"/>
    <javadoc sourcepath="${sources}" destdir="${docdir}"
     packagenames="${project}.*"/>
  </target>

  <target name="clean" depends="init">
    <deltree dir="${builds}/${project}" />
    <deltree dir="${distjardir}" />
    <deltree dir="${rootdistdir}" />
  </target>
</project>

------------------------------------------------
then project build.xml's look something like:
------------------------------------------------

<project name="adapted" default="dist" basedir="/development">

  <target name="init">
    <property name="project" value="adapted"/>
    <property name="version" value="1.0"/>
    <deltree dir="${basedir}/temp"/>
  </target>

  <target name="compile" depends="init">
    <ant antfile="${basedir}/template.xml" dir="${basedir}"
target="compile"/>
  </target>

  <target name="dist" depends="compile">
    <ant antfile="${basedir}/template.xml" dir="${basedir}" target="dist"/>
  </target>

  <target name="doc" depends="compile">
    <ant antfile="${basedir}/template.xml" dir="${basedir}" target="doc"/>
  </target>

  <target name="clean" depends="init">
    <ant antfile="${basedir}/template.xml" dir="${basedir}" target="clean"/>
  </target>

</project>

------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------

<project name="jmc" default="dist" basedir="/development">

  <target name="init">
    <property name="project" value="jmc"/>
    <property name="version" value="1.0"/>
    <property name="builds" value="${basedir}/builds"/>
    <deltree dir="${basedir}/temp"/>
  </target>
...
  <target name="rmic" depends="compile">
    <rmic base="${builds}" classname="${project}.db.remote.DBI"/>
  </target>

  <target name="dist" depends="rmic">
    <ant antfile="${basedir}/template.xml" dir="${basedir}" target="dist"/>
  </target>
...
</project>