On 11/8/05, John Farrar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > OK... now my ears are up. What is ANT... get me started there since there > are likely several of us that don't know.
Good point John. The only reason I know Ant is because I have worked with Java before, so if you have not worked with Java you would probably not be familiar with Ant (and even then it's not a guarantee). The "Apache Ant Project" , as Muzak already stated… http://ant.apache.org "Ant is a Java-based build tool. In theory, it is kind of like Make, without Make's wrinkles and with the full portability of pure Java code." But speaking from a more CFML perspective, Ant allows you to write an XML "build" file, which can be executed right form inside Eclipse (or form a command prompt). The build file can trigger multiple tasks, like zipping up files, moving files around, compiling code, or running an xUnit test. You can have multiple "targets" in your build too, kind of like different run states. For example, I might have a target that will package my help docs and zip then up, and a different target that runs my unit test and compiles my code. To be honest, I am not sure how much Ant is used by ColdFusion developers. The only time I have used it for CFML was with CFUnit itself, to zip all the files up and package them together (I kept screwing this up while doing it manually so I use Ant now to avoid human error). With CFUnit-Ant I can now have that build file test my code (yes I have CFUnit tests for CFUnit) before packaging it, which is handy. Another possible use is to execute them from CFEclipse. Eclipse can execute Ant build files very easily, and even has a UI that allows you to select which target(s) to execute. Today I have CFEclpise web browser open to my TestRunner, and frequently hit F5 to refresh it as I develop my code, but it might be useful to have a way to execute it with Ant instead (reporting any problems in the commands pane). And it probably opens up a few unique possibilities I have not though of yet too. Hope that helps. --------------------------------- Rob Blackburn http://www.rbdev.net b‹šë.nÇ+‰·�¶‡ qׯN‹§²æìr¸›zǧu©Þ™¨¥¶‡ qׯq÷3¢w¨® "¶a{ +v˧²æìr¸›yÇÜuëÚ²Ø^²æãyËh~Ø^zf¢”!B ëâ²»§o … š'{ 0q÷3¢w¨®§vË©¦ŠíyÖòUÇ¢Ëbž 0ÁÇñ†‹-Šx ¢`'j·!Š÷¨~Ø^Pƒzùb²Ø¬jö¢•¦åy«pà šŠV«r¯yÊ&ýÇÜuëÜ}Ìè�ê+
