Why go with a formal "task descriptor"? Why not just embed the task
definitions inside of the .jar's manifest file?
Manifest-Version: 1.0
Ant-Tasks: com.foo.bar.MyTaskDefOne com.baz.quux.MyTaskDefTwo
What, besides the classname of the task definitions, would you need to
provide in the task descriptor? (I ask this out of ignorance, not a desire
to pick a fight. :) )
FWIW, I'd love to see Ant get to the point of a "tasklib" directory similar
to the extensions directory in Java2--just drop the "tasklib" .jar into the
directory, and Ant'll pick it up on the next pass, taskdefs included.
Ted Neward
{.NET||Java} Course Author & Instructor
DevelopMentor (http://www.develop.com)
http://www.javageeks.com/tneward/index.html
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steve Loughran [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2001 9:40 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: Ant 1.5... loading tasks from jars?
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tim Dawson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Friday, October 05, 2001 9:09 AM
> Subject: Ant 1.5... loading tasks from jars?
>
>
> > I made the suggestion back in May to allow loading tasks from jars (a
> > tasklib, if you will), and I know it is currently listed in the 2.0
> > requested features, but it appears to be possible today...
> >
> > <taskdef resource="meta-inf/ant.tdf">
> > <classpath>
> > <pathelement location="mylib/mytasks.jar"/>
> > </classpath>
> > </taskdef>
> >
> > Of course, this is a completely non-obvious solution, which is why its
> still
> > a requested feature. :-)
>
> sounds like a documentation bug to me; nobody has updated the
> developing for
> ant page for a while.
>
> >
> > I believe what is wanted by people is something more along the lines of:
> >
> > <tasklib file="mylib/mytasks.jar"/>
> >
>
> <snip>
>
> > Doing the automatic inclusion of tasks from jar files in the
> lib dir would
> > be easily implemented using ClassLoader.getResources() (suggested by Dan
> > Barclay back in May when this topic came up initially) and would really
> > improve the way Ant currently packages the optional tasks. It is really
> > quite strange that the main ant.jar file has a defaults.properties file
> that
> > contains taskdefs for optional tasks. Both ant.jar and optional.jar
> should
> > have a "meta-inf/ant.tdf" (or whatever we use for the standard) file to
> > contain a list of what tasks are inside that jar file.
> >
>
> I think one of the goals (at least as I envisaged it) was to be
> able to drop
> jars into the ant lib directory and have their tasks registered.
> The taskdef
> task should also be able to pull in new jars and determine what tasks they
> contain.
>
> I also believe that the consensus was around around some XML
> declaration of
> what ant tasks there are, probably like the taglib one, except easier to
> generate. [NB: check out xdoclet.sourceforge.net for ant tasks to
> do that].
>
> Even while ant2.0 is in the undefined state, we could progress with some
> dynamic enumeration and loading of jar files with some task descriptor,
> provided we choose a task descriptor which is extensible to
> whatever ant 2.0
> wants.
>
> Maybe we could code up some very simple xml DTD for deploying
> ant1.x tasks,
> which includes a version identifier so future ant versions can
> recognise the
> version of the descriptor and react accordingly.
>
> <antdefs version="1.5">
> <taskdefs>
> <taskdef name="..." class="..."/>
> </taskdefs>
> <typedefs/>
>
> This would be easy, using jaktarta-digest or just pure DOM code. It would
> avoid the issue of taskdef clashes, but we avoid that today anyway.
>
> Does this seem like a good idea?
>
> -steve
>
>
>
>
