Getting Started with EL4Ant
This manual is designed to help you run your first EL4Ant project by reading as
little documentation as possible. Of course the reading of the
user's guide and the
plugins documentation is
recommended for a better understanding.
Installation
Prerequisites
- Sun Java SDK 1.4.2 (or compatible), XSLT support is needed for report
generation.
Options
- Eclipse 3.1
- Jakarta Tomcat 5.0 or later
Get EL4Ant
Download the latest
ant+el4ant+helloworld package
and unzip it anywhere you want in a new directory, which will be called
INSTALL next.
Ant configuration
Check that the
JAVA_HOME environment variable is defined with the path to
your JVM installation.
Edit your
PATH environment variable to include
INSTALL/ant/bin.
From the command line, check your configuration with
ant -version. The answer
must be
Apache Ant version 1.6.5 compiled on June 2 2005.
Deploy the HelloWorld web application
The HelloWorld application provides a module ready to be deployed as a web
application. You need Tomcat to go further.
Jakarta Tomcat is the official Reference Implementation container for the Java
Servlet and Java Server Pages technologies. It is released under the Apache
Software License. Further information can be found at
http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/.
Configure Tomcat
- First download latest Tomcat 5.0 or Tomcat 5.5 and unzip the package in
INSTALL. A directory has been created: for instance
INSTALL/jakarta-tomcat-5.0.27, rename it into INSTALL/tomcat to suit
the default configuration (in INSTALL/demo-project/plugins.xml, the
j2ee-web.home attribute).
- Edit the Tomcat user configuration file
INSTALL/tomcat/conf/tomcat-users.xml and add an admin
user with admin and manager role with a new line
<user name="admin" password="password" roles="admin,manager"/>.
- If you have changed the default Tomcat configuration, then other
attributes in the
j2ee-web-tomcat plugin must be changed too, as
j2ee-web.port and j2ee-web.baseurl for instance.
Configure the HelloWorld project
From the command line, in
INSTALL/demo-project, run
ant -f bootstrap.xml
The project declared in
INSTALL/demo-project/project.xml is now configured. In the
console output, you can see configured plugins and modules declared in the
project. Available targets in the generated build file can be listed with
ant -projecthelp.
Deploy HelloWorld web application in Tomcat
From the command line, in
INSTALL/demo-project, run
ant compile deploy.war.module.eu.helloworldweb
The web application context has been packaged in Tomcat
webapps/ directory
and either Tomcat has been started or its context has been
refreshed. Corresponding source files are located in
INSTALL/demo-project/helloworld/webresources/webapp,
INSTALL/demo-project/helloworld/web/webapp and
INSTALL/demo-project/helloworld/web/java.
Open the
http://localhost:8080/helloworld/ location in your favorite browser
to look at the result.
Use
Ctrl-C to stop the Tomcat running in the console if it was launched by
EL4Ant.
Other HelloWorld commands
Compile and start a basic application
From the command line, in
INSTALL/demo-project, run
ant jars start.module.eu.helloworldapp
Java sources have been compiled, classes have been packed in jar files and the
main class of the
helloworldapp module has been started.
Corresponding source files are located in
INSTALL/demo-project/helloworld/app/java
and
INSTALL/demo-project/helloworld/common/java.
You can change program arguments with the command:
ant start.module.eu.helloworldapp -Druntime.arguments="newarg1 newarg2"
or append arguments to the defined list in
project.xml with:
ant start.module.eu.helloworldapp -Druntime.append.arguments="newarg3 newarg4"
To demonstrate the runtime hook feature, the project is configured to enable
the JVM
-verbose option with the
jvmverbose system property set on the
command line.
ant start.module.eu.helloworldapp -Djvmverbose=
The original JVM command line has been changed by the
runtime.hook.jvm.verbose.
Generate the project reports
From the command line, in
INSTALL/demo-project, run
ant jars junit.start.all junit.report javadoc checkstyle website
The JUnit test cases have been run and reports have been generated in the
project site. Open the
dist/website/index.html location in your favorite
browser to look at the result.
JUnit test cases source files are located in
INSTALL/demo-project/helloworld/tests/java.
Generate the code coverage reports
To enable code coverage, a complete compilation with the system property
emma
set is needed.
ant clean jars junit.start.all start.module.eu.helloworldapp -Demma=t
To append code coverage information about the execution of the web application,
you may also run the following:
ant deploy.war.module.eu.helloworldweb -Demma=t
Play a little with it to cover the servlet code, then the following command
agregates coverage information and generate reports:
ant emma.report website
Open the
dist/website/index.html location in your favorite browser to look at
the new generated reports.
Eclipse integration
Eclipse installation
Project configuration
- Run
ant -f bootstrap.xml from INSTALL/demo-project in the command line.
- Then run
ant eclipse.generate to install runnable Java commands in the
workspace. The workspace must be reloaded if new commands have been added
or changed.
Eclipse configuration
- Start Eclipse and select the workspace
INSTALL/workspace (default
configuration in EL4Ant, in plugins.xml, eclipse.workspace.path
attribute)
- In the workbench, select the Java perspective (Window->Open
Perspective->Java)
- EL4Ant has generated one project per configured module. Import all project
with File->Import..., select Existing projects into Workspace, Next and
set root directory to
INSTALL/demo-project, Select All and Finish.
Usage
- The Run combo button contains a shortcut
el4ant_startdev.helloworldapp.0 to do the equivalent of
ant startdev.module.eu.helloworldapp
- The External Tool combo button contains shortcuts to invoke EL4Ant
targets.
el4ant_deploy.war.helloworldweb is the equivalent of
ant deploy.war.module.eu.helloworldweb. Click on the red square
button to stop Tomcat.
- If you change the project description,
- you have to import new projects corresponding to new modules,
- you have to refresh modified projects,
- you may have to reload the workspace after the execution of
ant eclipse.generate.
- Keep in mind that the EL4Ant configuration step generates Eclipse
project files (
.project, .classpath), so any manual changes in Eclipse
interface are lost at next automatic configuration.
Create a new project
You just have to copy
INSTALL/el4ant/project-template, for instance
INSTALL/myproject. In your Eclipse workspace, you will have to import (or
delete) modules (as Eclipse projects) corresponding to your changes in your
project description, after EL4Ant configuration step.
In case you do not copy the project template in
INSTALL, you have to edit
myproject/etc/bootstrap.properties to make the
buildsystem.lib.directory
property point to
INSTALL/el4ant/lib.
Getting help
Please use
SourceForce forum