The -lib switch sucks for everyday use. You don't want to modify the distributed code because the next time you upgrade you have to do it all over again.
An ext directory is self-documenting and easy to upgrade. 1) Install new distribution. 2) Copy ext from old distribution to new distribution. 3) Get back to work. Why did Sun add an ext directory to the java runtime? Because it was an easy and elegant solution for handling library extensions. Ant should learn from Sun's mistakes. -----Original Message----- From: Conelly, Luis (GE Energy, Non GE, GENE) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 6:46 PM To: Ant Users List Subject: RE: Ant should have an ext directory Why don't just use the -lib switch[1] and leave all as is? You can modify the ant script (either ant.bat or ant.sh) to make part of the ant command the lib switch. Then, you can distribute this modified version to your department. Just my 2 cents. Regards -Luis [1] http://ant.apache.org/manual/running.html#libs -----Original Message----- From: Robert r. Sanders [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 5:31 PM To: Ant Users List Subject: Re: Ant should have an ext directory Yeah, but I don't think this is what the question was about. It would be nice to have a place to put the (global) ant extensions you are using to keep them separate from the main/default ant libraries to help with file management, etc... The best I can think of: Create an ext directory in a central location, then use a build process to merge it with a base ANT install; then copy the results out to everyone in your department. Not as nice as if ANT supported this directly, but it might help. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > "Dick, Brian E." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > Understood, but I want to create a department-wide ant distribution that > > is augmented with common extension libraries. None of the options you > > list make this particularly clean and easy to manage. > >You may want to look into Maven for this one. You keep your sources >on a common server, describe these in a ".xml" file. Maven downloads >the sources to the local development environments, caching them there >as well as executing the build targets in your ant files. > >I'm going to be looking into it to keep track of which/where SQLServer >and Oracle jars are, as well as the beanshell and other distributions. >Seems quite promising. > >I'm pretty sure you could define all your extension libraries, >versions and where they go in the maven descriptor files. It also >allows different projects to have different distributions. (I believe >it uses an override mechanism) > >HTH. > > > -- Robert r. Sanders Chief Technologist iPOV www.ipov.net --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
