>
> > Looking at 'The life-cycle of a task' in
> > http://jakarta.apache.org/ant/manual/develop.html shows that
> > there are 10 steps, which I wouldn't consider very straightforward.
>
> The essential ones are probably quite easy to automate
> though, and many aren't necessary in many situations (eg
> calling addXXX when there aren't any such methods). Steps 6,
> 7, 8 and 9 are all the kind of things you'd want to set
> programmatically anyway.
>
True, but the given lifecycle only specifies the lifecycle of a task when
it's beeing used directly by Ant, which isn't necessarily the way you would
want to use it programatically. For example: If I develop a <loop> Task I
might want to reuse a task instance through the loops. To do this I would
need to know whether the setXXX() will have any effect on subsequent calls
to execute() or not. So I have to look at the source code and don't have
any guarantee that it will run with a new version of the task.
I believe there should be a more general lifecycle where it's stated what
calls a task requires and should expect. This would make it more
straightforward to use programatically.
> > For
> > example having a
> > constructor similar to the way it's referenced from a build
> > file would be
> > easier. For example:
> >
> > new Mkdir(new File("somedir"));
>
> That's fine for a task with just one attribute, but is hugely
> unscalable.
>
The given example is surely not a very good way to solve it. This would
require many constructors for the different combinations of attributes and
subelements, or just one with possibly an awful lot of parameters.
> > I am also unsure about some things with your solution:
> >
> > - How are the location and project fields set?
>
> I missed that out before, but it shouldn't be too hard to
> write a toolkit bit of code which sets the location and
> project of one task to be that of another.
>
Is there currently any class in Ant for this?
> > - A task expects that it's initialization steps (init(),
> > addXXX(), setXXX(),
> > etc.) occur once only. This requires great care from the
> caller side.
>
> Great care? Not really - if you only want init() called once,
> only call it once, etc!
>
> > Maybe a standardized way to invoke tasks programatically should be
> > introduced? Or a service that simplifies it?
>
> There could certainly be something to standardise creating a
> task which is ready to programmatically configure, ie taking
> care of steps 1-5. Beyond that, I don't think it needs much
> simplification:
>
> Mkdir mkdir = new Mkdir();
> UtilityClass.configureTaskOrWhatever (this, mkdir);
> mkdir.setDir ("somedir");
> mkdir.execute();
>
Currently the interface of a task centers around the way it is used by Ant.
It would be great if the interface were a little bit more neutral, so that
it is easier to use programatically.
--
knut
