Pass ant target to multiple build.xml files in subdirectories

Question

I have a project with multiple modules, each in its own directory. Each module has its own ant build file (build.xml)

In the root directory I've set up a general build file that calls the build file of each module in the right order.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<project name="bridgedb" default="all" basedir=".">
  <target name="all">
    <ant dir="corelib"/>
    <ant dir="tools"/>
    <ant dir="makeGdb"/>
    <ant dir="cytoscape-plugin"/>
  </target>
</project>

Now each module also has a "clean" target, so I add these lines:

 <target name="clean">
    <ant dir="corelib" target="clean"/>
    <ant dir="tools" target="clean"/>
    <ant dir="makeGdb" target="clean"/>
    <ant dir="cytoscape-plugin" target="clean"/>
  </target>

And there are more targets like that. Is there a way to rewrite the build file to avoid this duplication? I've looked for a built-in property that contains the active target, but I couldn't find it.

Solution 1

Why not use antcall to call a target that references all your subdirs, and parameterise the target to be called. e.g.

 <antcall target="doStuffToSubdirs">
    <!-- let's clean -->
    <param name="param1" value="clean"/>
  </antcall>

and then:

<target name="doStuffToSubdirs">
   <ant dir="corelib" target="${param1}"/>
   <ant dir="tools" target="${param1}"/>
    ...etc
</target>

so this allows you to parameterise the calls to your subdirs. If you add a new subdir, you only have to add that subdir to the 'doStuffToSubdirs' target (I would rename that as well!)

Solution 2

Put one clean target in your commonbuild.xml and in the child files just import your parent build.xml

<import file="${parent.dir}/commonbuild.xml" />

Now you will be able to call the clean target in your child builds. You can also override this target by creating a clean target in any of your child builds.

Comments

[T9b]

If I understand this correctly, that assumes that the "clean" target does exactly the same thing in each subdirectory. But that is not the case, especially not for other targets that I may wish to call in the same way.

[T9b]

although it should be <antcall target="..." and not <antcall name="..."

[T9b]

np, this is a useful trick too that I may use some other day :)

[Brian Agnew]

I'll correct that now. Thx for the heads up (I confess I didn't test that :-)

[Tazzy531]

http://www.exubero.com/ant/dependencies.html <-- I just implemented this in my build environment. Makes everything very clean and simple. I have one main build-common.xml and if I need to override the main, I just do it in the build.xml in the submodules.