My bad, it seems as this is already being considered as part of ANT2 ... "The only way to "include" common XML snippets so far has been the usage of external SYSTEM entities, a mechanism that is tied to DTDs and doesn't mix well with alternative approaches like XML Schema. Ant2 will provide a built-in include mechanism."
Sorry to bother! - Rodney -----Original Message----- From: Rodney Aiglstorfer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, April 13, 2002 6:19 PM To: ANT Dev List Subject: ANT needs an 'import' task Complex build systems can get quite large and I have not been successful in finding an easy method of modularizing. Existing tasks such as 'ant' load and execute a target during runtime (i.e. after the parent buildfile has been parsed by the ProjectHelper). In most cases this is not sufficient . consider the following examples Example. build.xml <project name="main"> . </project> Example. build-mod.xml <project name="sub"> <target name="sub-target"/> </project> If ant is invoked on build.xml, there is no way (using the 'ant' task) to specify a target in the second build file 'buildmod.xml'. IMHO, what is needed is a top-level 'import' tasks that can be used as such: <project .> <import buildfile="another-build-file.xml"/> . </project> or alternatively, add an option to the Main class that would indicate a list of build files to pre-parse/merge before executing. Is there any work being done one this? I've a pretty good implementation of the 'import' property and a hacked version of the ProjectHelper class . any takers? - Rodney -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
