Difference between revisions of "Higgins2Ant"

Revision as of 11:55, 22 March 2008

{{#eclipseproject:technology.higgins}}

Introduction

higgins2ant is an Eclipse plug-in that the Higgins project uses. It generates dependencies.xml file using information about particular project from Eclipse IDE. This information includes classpath information and plugin dependency information from either plugin.xml or manifest. In some cases it could be even more complex - only Eclipse IDE could gather all required classpath information correctly.

Prerequisites

A number of prerequisites need to be installed on the build machine, as follows:

1. J2SE 1.4.2
2. Eclipse version 3.2 of higher
3. Ant version 1.6.5 or higher

General Information

build.xml

The build.xml file is an Ant script that is created by the higgins2ant to take your java project/plug-in/feature components and combine them into a deployable format. This file compiles and archives your plug-in source code into a single JAR file.

Java project targets

Plug-in project targets

Feature project targets

project.psf and projectWithDeps.psf

Team Project Sets that are stored in the workspace can now be imported directly using the Import Project Set operation available in the context menu of any *.psf file. Higgins2ant automatically generates project.psf and projectWithDeps.psf files.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<psf version="2.0">
    <provider id="org.tigris.subversion.subclipse.core.svnnature">
        <project reference="0.9.3,https://dev.eclipse.org/svnroot/technology/org.eclipse.higgins/trunk/plugins/org.eclipse.higgins.cache.api,org.eclipse.higgins.cache.api"/>
    </provider>
</psf>

dependencies.xml

dependencies.xml provides the build process with information on required projects and/or libraries.

Build scripts use dependencies.xml file with the structure below as generated by Eclipse IDE.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<dependencies id="org.eclipse.higgins.icard.provider.cardspace.common">
	<!-- list of projects that are required -->
    <higginsProjects>
        <project id="org.eclipse.higgins.registry"/>
        <project id="org.eclipse.higgins.icard"/>
    </higginsProjects>
	<!-- libs that should be downloaded to the project. can be multiple for different locations -->
    <remoteLibs location="lib">
        <library id="commons-logging-1.1.jar"/>
        <library id="serializer.jar"/>
        <library id="xalan.jar"/>
        <library id="xercesImpl.jar"/>
        <library id="xmlsec-1.4.0.jar"/>
    </remoteLibs>
</dependencies>

Setup

With the prerequisites installed, follow these steps to setup your environment:

1. Add the jre/bin directory of the installed JDK to your PATH environment variable.
2. Add the ant/bin directory of the installed Ant to your PATH environment variable.

At last, you must install higgins2ant plugin. It can be installed by 2 ways:

• setup locally
• setup on-line

Setup locally

To Setup locally, follow the instructions below:

• select (in main menu) Help -> Software Updates -> Find and Install...
• in window "Install/Update" select Search for new features to install -> Next
• select New Local Site... (New Archived Site... if site archived) and choose folder (.zip or .jar file), where your local site places
• OK
• Finish
• in window "Updates" select

Setup on-line

Generate files

To generate, Select (from menu) Export -> (General) Higgins Buildfiles -> check projects (for which you wish to create the dependencies file and verify that name of dependencies XML document is dependencies.xml) -> Finish.

Run build files

To build any project with build.xml, follow the instructions below:

• cd yourproject
• ant [params]

Where params can use for following types of projects:

• for java/feature project (default): ant
• for plugin project (must have parameter 'plugin'): ant plugin

Uninstall

To uninstall the Higgins2Ant plug-in, follow the instructions below:

• select (in main menu) Help -> Software Updates -> Manager Configuration
• in window "Product Configuration" select Higgins Ant Files Generator Feature {installed version} in the treeview of features
• right click -> Uninstall
• OK
• Yes

See Also