org.netbeans.spi.project.support.ant

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 {@link org.netbeans.spi.project.support.ant.AntBasedProjectType} to the default lookup. This will get an instance of {@link org.netbeans.spi.project.support.ant.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.

{@link org.netbeans.spi.project.support.ant.ReferenceHelper}s can also be created by an Ant-based project and used to manage references to subprojects and their artifacts in a high-level manner.

{@link org.netbeans.spi.project.support.ant.ProjectGenerator} provides the easiest way to create a new Ant-based project on disk. Use {@link org.netbeans.spi.project.support.ant.GeneratedFilesHelper} to make build scripts and {@link org.netbeans.spi.project.support.ant.ProjectXmlSavedHook} to be told when to recreate them.

To allow third-party extensions to build scripts, use {@link org.netbeans.spi.project.ant.AntBuildExtenderImplementation} and {@link org.netbeans.spi.project.support.ant.AntBuildExtenderFactory}.

{@link org.netbeans.spi.project.support.ant.EditableProperties} is a VCS-friendly alternative to {@link java.util.Properties}. {@link org.netbeans.spi.project.support.ant.PropertyUtils} also provides various methods for working with Ant concepts such as relative file paths, property substitution, etc.

1. Can associate comments with particular entries.
2. Order of entries preserved during modifications whenever possible.
3. VCS-friendly: lines which are not semantically modified are not textually modified.
4. Can automatically insert line breaks in new or modified values at positions that are likely to be semantically meaningful, e.g.

A path matcher can be given an optional list of include patterns, and an optional list of exclude patterns.

This interface defines no independent thread safety, but in typical usage it will be used with the project manager mutex.

This interface defines no independent thread safety, but in typical usage it will be used with the project manager mutex.