wow! sounds complexe indeed:) just a first tip: did you take a look at ant-contrib <variable> task to solve your immutable properties issues?
Hind Lwahhabi. Accenture Belgium - Financial Services & Insurance Koningstraat 145 Rue Royale, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium mobile: +32 499567544 phone: + 32 2 226 75 44 E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: Richard Gaywood [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thu 8/4/2005 2:31 PM To: user@ant.apache.org Subject: More on antcall versus macrodef Hi all. Short time lurker, first time poster but I did search the archives! I'm pretty sure I can hear list regulars groaning at my subject line but here goes. I'm build manager for a fairly chunky Java webapp with an overly complex Ant 1.5 build script that I am refining using the new features in 1.6. Just splitting it into a couple of separate files with <import> declarations has helped, but I've run into a problem with parameterising the build. Without wanting to bog anyone down in the details, the build script outputs WARs for several different environments -- different servers, different OSs, and so on. Currently, the build process, at the top level, invokes a number of <antcall> tasks, each setting some basic properties: the name of the destination server and WAR file name for this build. From these basic properties, other properties are calculated; for example, if destination machine is Linux, use /usr/local/tomcat and if it's Windows, use d:/tomcat. To make matters worse, one of our Linux test servers has four (!) Tomcat installs, with different port numbers and directories to configure. About a dozen of these parameters are calculated and eventually end up written into some text files via a <replace> call. Basically, they are used all over the place, in various targets. For example, this is my define-tomcat-home target: <!-- set tomcat home directory for windows machines --> <condition property="tomcat-home" value="d:/tomcat5.0"> <equals arg1="${application}" arg2="WINDOWS" /> </condition> <!-- now handle the development environments --> <condition property="tomcat-home" value="/usr/local/tomcat-dev"> <and> <equals arg1="${application}" arg2="TESTSERVER" /> <equals arg1="${port-num}" arg2="8082" /> </and> </condition> <condition property="tomcat-home" value="/usr/local/tomcat-jprobe"> <and> <equals arg1="${application}" arg2="TESTSERVER" /> <equals arg1="${port-num}" arg2="8083" /> </and> </condition> <condition property="tomcat-home" value="/usr/local/tomcat-testing"> <and> <equals arg1="${application}" arg2="TESTSERVER" /> <equals arg1="${port-num}" arg2="8081" /> </and> </condition> <!-- all other applications, including live builds, default to Linux pathnames --> <!-- note that as Ant properties are immutable, the line below cannot override a setting made above (or on the command line) --> <property name="tomcat-home" value="/usr/local/tomcat" /> There is quite a bit more like this. Am I right in thinking that there is essentially no easy way to port this over to MacroDefs? It's these local vs immutable properties that scupper me. I need to loop through build tasks like the above snippet lots of times with different values, and that's not going to work with globally immutable properties. Does anyone have any tips I've missed on getting around this, or should I stick to AntCall for now? And before anyone points out this is rather overly complex: I know, but it's a complicated, already written app and I can't change it now. So I'm stuck with it. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This message is for the designated recipient only and may contain privileged, proprietary, or otherwise private information. If you have received it in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete the original. Any other use of the email by you is prohibited. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
