Package org.netbeans.spi.project.support.ant

Principal package for implementing typical Ant-based projects.

See: Description

Interface Summary

Interface	Description
AntBasedProjectType	Plugin for an Ant project type.
AntProjectListener	Listener for changes in Ant project metadata.
PropertyEvaluator	A way of mapping property names to values.
PropertyProvider	Provides a set of Ant property definitions that might be evaluated in some context.

Class Summary

Class	Description
AntProjectEvent	Event object corresponding to a change made in an Ant project's metadata.
AntProjectHelper	Support class for implementing Ant-based projects.
EditableProperties	Similar to Properties but designed to retain additional information needed for safe hand-editing.
FilterPropertyProvider	Property provider that delegates to another source.
GeneratedFilesHelper	Helps a project type (re-)generate, and manage the state and versioning of, build.xml and build-impl.xml.
PathMatcher	Utility to match Ant-style file patterns with extended glob syntax.
ProjectGenerator	Utilities to create new Ant-based projects on disk.
ProjectXmlSavedHook	Hook run when nbproject/project.xml is saved.
PropertyUtils	Support for working with Ant properties and property files.
ReferenceHelper	Helps manage inter-project references.
ReferenceHelper.RawReference	A raw reference descriptor representing a link to a foreign project and some build artifact used from it.
SourcesHelper	Helper class to work with source roots and typed folders of a project.

Annotation Types Summary

Annotation Type	Description
AntBasedProjectRegistration	Registers a Project implementation as an AntBasedProjectType extension.

Package org.netbeans.spi.project.support.ant Description

Principal package for implementing typical Ant-based projects.

A typical project based on Ant follows a standard pattern of having a project folder containing:

build.xml

A top-level editable build script.

various folders such as src

Development files.

various folders such as build

Build products. Not sharable in a VCS.

nbproject/build-impl.xml

Main logic for the build; regenerated from nbproject/project.xml but sharable.

nbproject/project.xml

General project metadata, including a declaration of the type of project, its name, some structural parameters relating to the build, a list of subprojects, etc.

nbproject/project.properties

Sharable build configuration for the project.

nbproject/private/private.xml

Per-user (or per-checkout) project metadata, if any.

nbproject/private/private.properties

Per-user build configuration for the project.

nbproject/private/cache

Cache directory containing disposable files that might speed up various operations.

Note that since Ant is not aware of the NetBeans Filesystems API, all these files must be physically present on disk, not e.g. in an archive or remote filesystem.

There may also be a file named build.properties located in the NetBeans user directory which can supply additional definitions needed for a build: e.g. the locations of Java platforms and libraries. A typical build-impl.xml loads property definitions from this global properties file as well as the project's nbproject/project.properties and nbproject/private/private.properties.

The basic operations commonly performed on an Ant-based project are:

• Creation from wizard, including build.xml.

• Loading metadata from disk.

• Modifying metadata and build properties in memory, and subsequently saving to disk.

• Regenerating nbproject/build-impl.xml, typically based on transforming nbproject/project.xml with an XSLT stylesheet.

• Running a build target of a well-known name in build.xml using Ant.

• Enumerating important build outputs ("artifacts").

• Adding dependencies on "subprojects" by getting information about their artifacts and storing references to them.

• Interpreting values of Ant properties found on disk, to be used in providing information to the IDE about various development files (e.g. when implementing queries).

A new category of Ant-based project can be registered in the system by adding an implementation of AntBasedProjectType to the default lookup. This will get an instance of AntProjectHelper for every project it creates; the helper does a lot of the work required to interact with the file structure outlined above.

To run Ant targets, use ActionUtils.

ReferenceHelpers can also be created by an Ant-based project and used to manage references to subprojects and their artifacts in a high-level manner.

ProjectGenerator provides the easiest way to create a new Ant-based project on disk. Use GeneratedFilesHelper to make build scripts and ProjectXmlSavedHook to be told when to recreate them.

To allow third-party extensions to build scripts, use AntBuildExtenderImplementation and ant.AntBuildExtenderFactory.

EditableProperties is a VCS-friendly alternative to Properties. PropertyUtils also provides various methods for working with Ant concepts such as relative file paths, property substitution, etc.