What ant target does netbeans "Clean & Build" call? - netbeans

I am trying to automatically copy files after the "dist" directory has been created and populated. The provided ant targets "-post-jar" and "-post-compile" seem to run before the dist directory is created. I can't find the actual build target in the build-impl.xml file. So I was going to attempt to put the command directly in build-impl.xml but can't seem to determine the correct target.
edit: -post-jar does work, however I am still curious what target is called.

The Clean & Build calls the following ant targets:
clean
deps-jar

Edit Ant settings to run build with verbose mode and you get get better insights into what targets are executed and when. build-impl.xml probably includes another build files from NetBeans installation where you can find all the details (some targets are defined through macros and it is not very readable).

Related

Automatic Build for Non-Java Eclipse Project

I have a project that contains xml files. I also have an Ant build in that project to generate documentation based on the xml files. The Ant build calls a Ruby script for generation.
I would like a way run that Ant build after the modification of any resource in the "{project}/xml" folder. I know that I can right click on the build.xml and Run As->Ant Build, but I want it to be more like the incremental build for Java projects. I have tried creating a builder, importing the Ant build and setting up relevant resources, but when I make a change to the XML file, a build does not start. I have "Build Automatically" checked for the project as well.
This must be possible. What am I missing?
A custom builder will only run when a file is saved that is in a source directory. Make sure the /xml folder is included as a source location in the Project Properties, Java Build Path.

Netbeans project to scripted build

I'm trying to convert a Netbeans 6.9.1 project into a scripted build (without netbeans). Of course, it fails (or I wouldn't be asking for help).
In the failure it says that the org.apache.commons.httpclient package does not exist. (Of course, it worked when we ran the build in Netbeans).
Now I know exactly where the commons-httpclient.jar file is located in my project structure, but I can't seem to tell it to the compiler via the ant build files and the netbeans property files.
Perhaps related to this is when I ran "ant -v" to build my software, it said,
Property lib.mystuff.classpath has not been set. This variable is important, I guess, because
the file nbproject/project.properties uses lib.mystuff.classpath in its definition of javac.classpath, which of course tells the Java compiler where to find the JARs.
So...when moving a Netbeans project to a netbeans-independent scripted build, how can the build script set these properties? Also, how can I ensure that the jar file gets included in the ant build?
I appreciate any help I can get, as I am a Java newbie.
UPDATE AFTER ACCEPTING ANSWER FROM vkraemer:
There are a few best practices for build scripts for production software:
Put everything needed for a build under a single directory tree. (Netbeans = fail)
Put everything in source code control. (I did that)
The first line of the build script should clear all environment variables.
The next section of the build script should explicitly set all environment variables to values which are known to work.
The next part of the build should be able to execute using command-line programs such as javac, ant, cc, etc, and must not depend on firing up an IDE such as Eclipse or Netbeans.
It is a shame that Netbeans makes this hard.
I did a quick look in a Java Application project and found the following...
javac.classpath = ${libs.MyStuff.classpath}
libs.MyStuff.classpath is defined in %HOME%/.netbeans/6.9.1/build.properties.
You may be able to get by doing the following...
ant -Dlibs.MyStuff.classpath=c:\a\b\c.jar
You would need to do more if you have multiple jar files in the MyStuff library that you created in NetBeans.

Target Platform for PDE Headless build does not work

I am currently trying to get my headless pde-build working but I am stuck on a point where I do not know how to continue.
The problem is how to define the related target platform to compile the plugins against.
I have a build.bat with the following call (all in one line!):
java -jar D:\target\eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.0.201.R35x_v20090715.jar
-application org.eclipse.ant.core.antRunner
-f D:\target\eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.pde.build_3.5.2.R35x_20100114\scripts\productBuild\productBuild.xml
-Dbuilder=c:\pde-build\scripts %*
I tried to create the target eclipse platform from different parts: The eclipse SDK, RCP SDK, Delta Pack, PDE-SDK in all combinations but none of them worked well.
I got the following error:
BUILD FAILED
D:\target\eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.pde.build_3.5.2.R35x_20100114\scripts\productBuild\productBuild.xml:18: Cannot fin
d ${eclipse.pdebuild.scripts}/build.xml imported from D:\target\eclipse\plugins\org.eclipse.pde.build_3.5.2.R35x_2010011
4\scripts\productBuild\productBuild.xml
where the variable ${eclipse.pdebuild.scripts} does not got resolved. I also tried to give this parameter via the command line but then I got another error regarding missing svn task which is absolutely confusing as this is working with my local eclipse installation referenced.
When I replace the path from d:/target/eclipse to my local eclipse installation the pde build works as expected!
This leads my to the point that the configuration of the target eclipse is not correct but in the moment I have no idea how to configure this!
My goal is the automate the pde build first on my local site without referencing my local eclipse and later on integrate this building process into our running cruisecontrol instance.
As I saw already another question about defining the target eclipse I would be happy if anyone can contribute hints or facts regarding the problem.
Regards,
Andreas
When performing a headless build, the target can be separate from the eclipse that is actually running the build itself. The problem you had here is that the eclipse that you were using to run the build did not have PDE/Build properly installed.
This is why the ${eclipse.pdebuild.scripts} was not set, because PDE/Build was not installed into that eclipse instance, the org.eclipse.pde.build bundle was not resolved and the code that sets this property never got called. Similarly, the necessary ant classpath entries for PDE/Build tasks would not have been set up properly either.
You need the Eclipse with PDE installed inside to run the build, but the target for the build can be separate from this.
In the build.properties file found under -Dbuilder=c:\pde-build\scripts you can set several properties:
baseLocation This is a path to an eclipse that is your target.
buildDirectory This is where the build will actually take place, source is fetched to plugins/ and features/ subfolders, but if there are already binary plugins located here then those become part of the target as well.
pluginPath This is a list of paths (separated with ';' on windows or ':' on linux) containing other locations that should be considered as part of your target. These locations can be several things:
The root of an eclipse-like install with plugins/ and features/ subfolders. This is a good way to provide the delta-pack instead of just unzipping it on top of an eclipse install.
The root of a workspace-like folder, where all subfolders are treated as plugins or features depending on the presence of a manifest or feature.xml.
The root of a bundle or feature, or the jar for a bundle.
If you are doing a p2 build (p2.gathering = true) you can also provide p2 repositories under a ${repoBaseLocation} which will be transformed and placed under ${transformedRepoLocation} and will become part of your target, and the p2 metadata there will get reused during the build.
after some more time of investigation I found out, what I did wrong so far. As I mentioned above defining the target platform is not that easy as copying the SDK and plugins in into one location (as it was in early times of eclipse dev).
The working solution by now is the following: Copying the eclipse SDK into the target location and run this version. Install inside this the neccessary PDE-Tools to enable plugin development. After that, close the IDE and copy the delta pack + the respective svn plugin (I used org.eclipse.pde.build.svn-1.0.1RC2 from sourceforge) into the target platform and you're done.
Now my automated PDE build is running as expected.
Only minor issue now is the following: The result product contains eclipse-specific menu entries which are not there when I ran this from inside my dev-eclipse.
Any hints on that?
I just posted an answer to my question on this kind of topics, may be this can help you:
Plugin product VS Feature product

Compiling non-source files in Xcode

I've got several file pairs:
mydata.json, mydata.raw
other.json, other.raw
etc...
A custom tool builds these files into data files to be consumed by my app, like so:
mydata.dat, other.dat, etc...
What is the correct way for me to set up Xcode to build these resource files? Either one could change, so I can't just set up a custom build rule for a .raw file, for example. I've thought about using an "external build" project using make, but I don't know how to register the results with Xcode to be copied as a resource.
You should be able to just add a Run Script build phase to your target in Xcode to run the external build tool and copy the resulting files into your app's bundle. Right-click on your target and choose Add > New Build Phase > New Run Script Build Phase.
You can use whatever scripting environment you prefer, just specify its path in the "Shell" field. For a bash script, you'd specify /bin/bash, for example.
You can then use the predefined Xcode environment variables to get the location of the various folders in the built package. Have a look at the Xcode Build Setting Reference for details. For example, the Resources folder in the app bundle is at ${UNLOCALIZED_RESOURCES_FOLDER_PATH}.

Refresh an Eclipse project with Ant

We have some Ant script fosr building the different jars we use, in several Eclipse projects. There is some interdependency
At the end of the build, we have to refresh some of the Eclipse projects in order to make the build path valid. Without this, it doesn't see one of the just-built jars and Eclipse throws a build path error.
There is a way to avoid the manual refresh step?
Try this:
<eclipse.refreshLocal resource="project_name/folder_name" depth="infinite" />
There are option details at the Eclipse help system.
Important: you have to choose "Run in the same JRE as workspace" at the Ant run configuration.
You may want to turn on "Refresh Automatically".
See Window->Preferences->General->Workspace->Refresh Automatically
and it'll monitor filesystem changes for you.
If you're running the ant script from within eclipse you can right-click on it and select "Run As >" then "Ant Build...". There's a 'Refresh' panel in the options to run the script which you can choose to refresh various things after the script completes.
This might not be answering your question exactly but I don't quite understand what is causing the problem.
As I understand it you have a project A that creates a jar file and that jar file is referenced by project B. When you re-build project A, you need to refresh so that project B can see the new jar file. Is that correct?
I do something similar but I don't get any build path errors because the name of the project A jar file hasn't changed.
Another option is for Project B to reference Project A directly instead of referencing its jar file.
I think I may have misunderstood the problem you are having but I hope this helps anyway.
it can be done by following Ant tasks provided by the Eclipse platform.
<eclipse.refreshLocal resource="MyProject/MyFolder" depth="infinite"/>
Note: make sure to run Ant inside the same VM where Eclipse workspace is running, for details check following links
Problem: failed to create task or type eclipse.refreshLocal
Ant tasks provided by the Eclipse platform