david jencks wrote: > > The feature makes sense to me. > > --want things only done once, I make a target with depends in build.xml > > --want them done once/target, use command line. > >
Well, it's not an intuitive feature to some of us. I think the problem stems from ant's descendency from make. "Ant is a Java-based build tool. In theory, it is kind of like make, without make's wrinkles." So in theory, it behaves like make(?). However if you create a similar example with make: default: bar foo: echo foo bar1: foo echo bar1 bar2: foo echo bar2 And run "make bar1 bar2", the result is foo bar1 bar2 If you take Dan Lipofsky's example and run ant with -verbose, you'll see how different ant is. Ant actually performs the project twice, overriding the project's default target with each command line target in turn. ant bar1 bar2 ... Build sequence for target `bar1' is [foo, bar1] ... Build sequence for target `bar2' is [foo, bar2] My conclusion is that people interpret "in theory" in different ways (in other words, ant's documentation is a teenie weenie bit deceptive). The strict interpretation (which does not apparently hold) is that the functional theory of make and ant are similar. The intended meaning seems to be "ant can do what make can do, but uses a different functional theory." Put another way, consider the C and C++ languages. C++ is like C, but to use C++ effectively, you have to think differently than you did when you used C. Your hints as to where to add this in the Ant documentation are welcome. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
