I see the point about $ANT_HOME/lib and repeatability. Let me
summarize the possible options:
1. all jar dependencies are in the Ant classpath. It "works", but
potentially leads to problems. I agree that it is not the way to go.
2. poi-excelant.jar is in the Ant classpath and other POI jars are
defined via a path element.
The advantage is that user does not need to explicitly define the
ExcelAnt tasks in build.xml because Ant loads all custom tasks from
its classpath automatically.
A user target in this case might look like this:
<target name="mytest">
<excelant>
<classpath refid="poi-3.8.classpath"/>
....
</excelant>
</target>
where refid="poi-3.8.classpath" references a classpath with all POI
dependencies.
3. User provides a path element with all the jar dependencies and
explicitly registers the ExcelAnt tasks:
<path id="excelant.classpath">
<pathelement location="poi-main.jar"/>
<pathelement location="poi-ooxml.jar"/>
<pathelement location="poi-excelant.jar"/>
<pathelement location="my-udf-toolkit.jar"/>
</path>
<typedef resource="org/apache/poi/ss/excelant/antlib.xml"
classpathref="excelant.classpath"/>
We already support (1) and (3) and I'm not sure if (2) is worth the
effort. When I asked about the <classpath> element support I was
inspired by Ant's <junit> task. It is a core task but depends on
external junit.jar and I thought ExcelAnt should follow the same rules
and do one of:
# Put all excelant.jar and POI jars in ANT_HOME/lib.
# Do not put either in ANT_HOME/lib, and instead include their
locations in your CLASSPATH environment variable.
# Add both JARs to your classpath using -lib.
# Specify the locations of both JARs using a <classpath> element in a
<taskdef> in the build file.
# Put excelant.jar in ANT_HOME/lib but include POI jars in the
<classpath> passed to <excelant>.
If the last item is hard to implement then it's not worth the effort.
ExcelAnt does not claim to be a core Ant task, its niche is narrow and
specific and defining all the dependencies in a path element is OK.
Yegor
On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 9:50 PM, Jon Svede <[email protected]> wrote:
> Nick, Yegor -
>
> Regarding the excelant tasks and issue 50610: from the exchange below I don't
> think it's going to be feasible to put only the excelant tasks in a jar file
> in $ANT_HOME/lib dir. Additionally, as the comment points out, this makes
> repeatability more difficult for users (because people would have to drop in
> the excelant.jar in to the lib dir of Ant). Plus the solution to this
> requires another optional jar which puts us further from a clean solution.
>
> I think the easiest thing to do for end users is to require users to define a
> path element with all of the dependencies - the POI jars, the ExcelAnt jar,
> any jars containing FreeRefFunction implementations or other excelant related
> classes.
>
> Do either of you have opinions about this?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jon
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Forwarded Message ----
> From: Peter Reilly <[email protected]>
> To: Ant Users List <[email protected]>
> Sent: Mon, March 14, 2011 12:27:25 PM
> Subject: Re: How to reference <path> elements in custom task
>
> There is nothing in ant that would do that (it was
> planned at one stage).
>
> In any case, it is not good practice to place
> any extra jars into $ANT_HOME/lib, as this
> makes reproducible builds difficult.
>
> The ant-classloader task
> http://enitsys.sourceforge.net/ant-classloadertask/ (written by
> Rainer Noack) will
> solve your problem, but at the "cost" of an extra jar.
>
> Peter
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 5:56 PM, Jon Svede <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Wolfgang,
>>
>> Thanks for the reply.
>>
>> So originally I had my tasks working by defining a <path> entry that
>> included my
>> tasks and their dependencies. This worked fine without me having to do
>> anything
>> other than define <taskdef> entries in my build file.
>>
>> Then I was asked to make it so that my tasks could be put into the
>> $ANT_HOME/lib
>> dir but be able to define the dependencies in the build.xml. This did not
>> work.
>> My tasks would be found, but the dependencies were not. I am guessing it's
>> parentage thing: my classes are higher in the classloader parentage than it's
>> dependencies. I then tested this by adding all the classes my tasks depend
>> on
>> to my jar file in the $ANT_HOME/lib - that worked too, but it failed when I
>> added classes that implement my interfaces. In this case, I think it is
>> again
>> some sort of parentage issue.
>>
>> My specific use case is as follows:
>>
>> I have a set of ant tasks that depend on Apache POI for spreadsheet testing.
>> I
>> do not want to package the POI classes into my jar. Secondarily, my jar
>> file of
>> tasks defines an interface for users to implement; those implementations can
>> be
>> given to my ant tasks for execution.
>>
>> I thought, perhaps incorrectly, that if my tasks could access the path
>> element
>> and then "inject" those references into the execution environment I'd be
>> able to
>> move forward. Am I mistaken?
>>
>> Most of what I found either didn't apply or I didn't understand. What I did
>> find outside of that didn't seem to help. I found a reference to a
>> Classloader
>> task written by Peter Reilly but this is again an external task. I have been
>> under the assumption that I would be able to resolve my issue with the core
>> ant
>> tasks rather than requiring additional non-core jars.
>>
>> Does that give you more insight into my problem? It's entirely possible that
>> what I want to do isn't feasible but that is what I am basically asking: can
>> I
>> do this as I've described or is there another, more preferable way to
>> accomplish
>> this?
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Jon
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: wolfgang haefelinger <[email protected]>
>> To: Ant Users List <[email protected]>
>> Sent: Mon, March 14, 2011 11:21:57 AM
>> Subject: Re: How to reference <path> elements in custom task
>>
>> Jon,
>>
>>> <someCustomTask classpathref="some.path"/>
>>
>> This attribute of yours, "classpathref" is not a standard attribute:
>> http://ant.apache.org/manual/Tasks/common.html
>>
>>> I've been searching for examples or forum posts related to this but
>>> everything
>>> I've found isn't working.
>>
>> How about sharing what you've found and what exactly is not working?
>>
>> // Wolfgang
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 5:50 PM, Jon Svede <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I have a set of custom tasks that need to be able to load dependencies from
>>> <path> element. In my case my tasks may be defined in <taskdef>
>>> declarations
>>>or
>>> via adding the jar file to the $ANT_HOME/lib dir.
>>>
>>> This is what I want to have in the build.xml file:
>>>
>>>
>>> <path name="some.path">
>>> <pathelement location="some/local/dir/my.jar"/>
>>> </path>
>>>
>>> <target name="mytarget">
>>> <someCustomTask classpathref="some.path"/>
>>> </target>
>>>
>>>
>>> In this example the task someCustomTask needs to be able to have classes
>>> from
>>> the path 'some.path' to be able to execute.
>>>
>>> I've been searching for examples or forum posts related to this but
>>> everything
>>> I've found isn't working. Does anyone have a good explanation of this is
>> done
>>> or are there some docs on this?
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance,
>>>
>>> Jon
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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