Dependencies Ant task

This Ant task provides a Maven style downloading service, by declaring a set of dependencies. Files corresponding to dependencies are downloaded from a repository. The snippet below shows a small example.

<download id="foo" dir="${build.dir}/cache">
    <mavenrepository url="http://www.ibiblio.org/maven/"/>

    <dependency>
        <id>JakartaBeanUtils</id>
        <groupId>commons-beanutils</groupId>
        <artifactId>commons-beanutils</artifactId>
        <version>1.6.1</version>
    </dependency>
</download>

The task downloads the beanutils jar from the official Maven repository (ibiblio) and stores it into the cache directory (${build.dir}/cache) as the file JakartaBeanUtils.jar. No download will take place if the file already is present in the cache.

The id attribute of the task defines a pattern set that later might be used in a fileset or another Ant type that supports pattern sets.

<war destfile="${dist.dir}/foobar.zip" webxml="...">
    <lib dir="${build.dir}/cache">
        <patternset refid="foo"/>
    </lib>
    ...
</war>

Upload Ant task

This Ant task performs the opposite of the download task. Given an artifact file, a repository and a dependency defintion, it copies the file into the repository using the dependency defintion to create the artifact path/url. The snippet below shows a small example.

<upload file="${dist.dir}/myFoobar.war">
    <localrepository dir="R:/mavenrepo"/>

    <dependency>
        <id>myFoobar</id>
        <groupId>com.myCompany</groupId>
        <artifactId>myFoobar</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.3</version>
        <type>war</type>
    </dependency>
</upload>

The file 'myFoobar.war' is copied to R:/mavenrepo/com.myCompany/wars/myFoobar-1.2.3.war. if the directory is web enabled as well, then the artifact is available at an URL similar to 'http://www.myCompany.com/mavenrepo/com.myCompany/wars/myFoobar-1.2.3.war'.

Dependency

A download task contains one or more dependency definitions. A dependency definitions is 'mostly' compatible with a Maven dependency definition. A dependency have a set of properties, expressed as attributes or nested elements (maven style). See the table below for a list of available properties.

Repository

A download task contains one or more repository definitions. A repository is either remote (http) or local (directory). The former is called a 'mavenrepository' and the latter is called 'localrepository'. A maven repository takes an url attribute specifying the root of its artifact tree. A local repository takes a directory attribute specifying the root of its artifact tree. If neither, a maven nor a local repository is appropriate, you can implement your own and supply its class name to a 'customrepository' definition.

External dependencies

A download task, might refer to an external xml file containing dependency definitions. The file can reside in the file system (attribute file) or inside the class path (attributes resource/classpath). This external file must nest all dependencies inside a 'dependencies' parent node. This node might be the root node of the xml file (stand-alone) or be a child of a 'project' root (maven project file).

Upload

An upload task is the opposite of download. It transfers one single artifact, e.g. JAR file, into a repository using one single dependency definition for its name inside the repository. Currently, only localrepository is supported, which means the transfer is a plain old file copy (POFC).

Requirements

This library has been developed and tested with Ant 1.6 and JDK 1.4.2. It's using some Ant 1.6 features, however I'm haven't investigated if it runs on an older JDK than 1.4.

Download and setup

Download and unpack the distribution, and copy the libray JAR file to a convenient directory. Add the task using Ant's 'taskdef' and antlib support. Here is an example of a 'build.xml' snippet.

<typedef resource="com/ribomation/dependencies/ant/antlib.xml">
    <classpath>
        <pathelement location="${lib.dir}/dependencies-2.0.jar" />
        <pathelement location="${dom4j.dir}/${dom4j.jar}"/>
    </classpath>
</typedef>

Lazy installation

The "quick and dirty" installation uses Ant's own download support. Copy the XML snippet below to your own 'build.xml'. Change the download directory (lib.dir) to something appropriate for you. If the JAR file is not available, in the class file it is downloaded from the remote repository.

<path id="deps.classpath">
    <pathelement location="${cache.dir}/${deps.jar}"/>
    <pathelement location="${dom4j.dir}/${dom4j.jar}"/>
</path>

<target name="deps.check">
    <available
        property="deps.class.available"
        classname="${deps.class}"
        classpathref="deps.classpath"/>
</target>

<target name="deps.download" depends="deps.check" unless="deps.class.available">
    <mkdir dir="${cache.dir}"/>
    <get src="${repo.url}/${deps.path}/${deps.jar}" dest="${cache.dir}/${deps.jar}" />
</target>

<target name="deps.setup" depends="deps.download">
    <typedef resource="com/ribomation/dependencies/ant/antlib.xml">
        <classpath refid="deps.classpath"/>
    </typedef>
</target>

<target name="cache.download" depends="deps.setup">
    <download id="libs" dir="${cache.dir}">
        <mavenrepository url="${repo.url}"/>
        <dependency id="junit" version="3.8.1"/>
    </download>
</target>
                

The Ant properties used in the snippet above, is listed below (taken from build.properties).

repo.url        = http://www.ribomation.com/mavenrepo
deps.path       = com.ribomation.dependencies/jars
deps.version    = 2.0
deps.jar        = dependencies-${deps.version}.jar
deps.class      = com.ribomation.dependencies.ant.DownloadTask
dom4j.dir       = C:/java/libs/dom4j-1.5
dom4j.jar       = dom4j-1.5.jar
                

Attributes of 'download'

Nested element: '*repository'

The search for a file to download is performed in the same order repositories are listed. Supported repositories are listed in the table below.

Nested element: 'dependency'

The dependency nested element is a container for the properties listed in the table below. Properties might specified as nested elements (Maven style) or as attributes.