Difference between revisions of "Higgins2Ant"

Revision as of 09:08, 25 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.

When ant file is created the directory is scaned to find other xml-files. And, if in any of these files the xml processing instrucion <?eclipse.ant.import?> was found, the targets of that xml-file will included into the ant build file.

Java project targets

There are targets in java project build.xml file:

• build (default) builds the source code of the project with subprojects. Targets, which depends on this target, will create build, build/bin (for class files), build/lib (for lib files) and build/doc (for javadoc files) directories. To these directories the files of subprojects will copied, because Eclipse's IDE targets replaces ant build files (in subprojects) onto Eclipse's IDE build files.
• jar jars a set of project's files. It creates in build/lib folder jar file with projectName_version.jar file name.
• javadoc creates javadoc for the project. It generates in build/bin folder code documentation using the javadoc tool.
• clean cleans build folder of the project. This target deletes all files and subdirectories of build folder, including build itself.
• copy.libs copies all project required libraries to user defined dir
• copy.all.jars copies all JARs to user defined dir
• cleanall cleans build folders of dependency projects
• fetch.dependencies fetches the dependencies of projects and subprojects

Plug-in project targets

Into the plug-in project build.xml file following targets were added:

• plugin builds the plug-in. Creates build/plugins (for jar-files of plug-ins), build/temp.dir (for copying temporary files to), build/temp.dir/builder (the Eclipse's IDE plug-ins are copying here, also here build.properties file is generated), build/temp.dir/plugins (for temporary building plug-ins) and build/temp.dir/features (for included features) directories

Feature project targets

There are targets in feature project build.xml file:

• feature (default) builds feature project with features and projects which it includes. Creates build (for results of building), build/features, build/temp.dir, build/temp.dir/builder, build/temp.dir/plugins, build/temp.dir/features, build/temp.dir/build, build/temp.dir/tmp
• fetch.dependencies fetches the dependencies of projects and subprojects

project.psf and projectWithDeps.psf

These files are created if you have installed the Supclipse plug-in. 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.

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

<?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

Before setup locally, you must download higgins2ant.update.zip on local machine.

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 Higgins Ant Files Generator Feature {installed version} in the treeview of features
• Next
• read license, if you accept the terms in the license agreements, select Next
• Finish
• in window "Verification" select Install or Install All
• Yes

Setup on-line

To Setup on-line, 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 Remote Site... and input Name (ex. "Higgins2ant Update Site") and URL (must be http://download.eclipse.org/technology/higgins/higgins2ant/)
• OK
• Finish
• in window "Updates" select Higgins Ant Files Generator Feature {installed version} in the treeview of features
• Next
• read license, if you accept the terms in the license agreements, select Next
• Finish
• in window "Verification" select Install or Install All
• Yes

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

Automated Builds