At 12:45 15/12/00 -0700, James Bucanek wrote: >On a more general note, I'm really surprised that Ant seems to have >no concept of an up-to-date target, or up-to-date source files. Make >really only does one thing: determine which set of files are out of >date and executes commands to bring them up-to-date.
It is not supposed to ;) While there is the UpToDate task the core is not meant to do any checking - it is the tasks themselves that should do it. That way there is no ugly hacks (ala force targets) in ant and everything is consistent even if you don't deal with files. >Ant, on the other hand, bills itself as a replacement for make nope - it is a dependency task execution environment. It can replace make as a build dependency tool but not necessary to inherit all the faults of make. >but >seems to leave this dependency checking entirely in the hands of the >individual tasks. right. >Am I missing something here, or does this seem >like an obvious use pattern that should be somehow integrated with >Ant (even if it's only a set of utility classes for use by tasks)? The utility classes are partway there - they just haven't been widely adapted. The reason mainly is that ant has been evolving so fast it is often hard to keep up ;) Cheers, Pete *-----------------------------------------------------* | "Faced with the choice between changing one's mind, | | and proving that there is no need to do so - almost | | everyone gets busy on the proof." | | - John Kenneth Galbraith | *-----------------------------------------------------*
