Introduction

The EL4Ant is a build system based on Ant. Its principle is to generate a build file (build.xml) for Ant with high-level targets for everyday tasks, based on a project description, consisting in plugins and modules.

Objectives

• Must be efficient and fast for everyday tasks
• Must be extensible with plugins (easy to write for a Ant user, Java developper)
• Keep it lightweight and simple

Getting Started

Download the latest HelloWorld package ant+el4ant+helloworld at SourceForge.net and follow the GettingStarted instructions.

Core documentation

Let's read the user's guide before reading the documentation of a plugin you want to use.

The full build system user documentation in one document (e.g. to print out) can be found here.

Plugin documentation

This section lists available plugins for the build system and their dedicated user documentation.

You should only declare in your project description, the plugin you really use. That way, you keep your project build usage simple because the number of available targets is smaller, and the system works faster.

Core plugins

The compile, runtime, onlinelib and show plugins are described in the user's guide.

Reports

• javadoc : generates a javadoc report per set
• checkstyle : generates a checkstyle report per set
• junit : executes JUnit testcases and generates a report per set
• emma : instruments code and generates a code coverage report per set
• website : aggregates reports into a single entry point

Tools

• binrelease : binary module support
• resources : add support for resources directory per module
• commons-attributes : parses and generates attributes with the eponym Jakarta Apache tool

J2EE Integration

• j2ee-war, j2ee-web-tomcat, j2ee-web-weblogic, j2ee-ear, j2ee-ejb-jboss, j2ee-ejb-weblogic : generates a WAR or EAR for a module and deploys it in Tomcat, BEA Weblogic or JBoss

IDE Integration

• eclipse : integrates features in Eclipse

Internal documentation

• Developer's guide describes the build system internals and how to create a plugin.