Code Status

Why fAnt?

Best practice

Define your own project layout, for Java, we use the one suggested by Maven2

Examples:

     > ant layout # will create src/main/java, src/main/resources etc. directories

Easy to use

Build systems are not easy, they're actually quite complicated, however it should be easy to use, easy to maintain.

Ant is OK, but it doesn't have the convention, it doesn't support the sub modules, it doesn't have dependency management, but it's easy to use, with no major learning curve.

Maven has those features Ant doesn't have, but it's messy, it's not easy to maintain, it's hard to comprehend its usage...

Fant exists to help solve those problems.

It essentially exists as a few additional Ant tasks. All things in Fant are in Ant, which means Ant remains in control. This is in contrast to IVY, which solves the problem similarly, but has additional modules requiring a learning curve to understand. Fant avoids this extra learning block.

Here is an example project definition, basically this is all that is needed to define a project:

<project name="bspell" default="clean" basedir="." xmlns:fant="antlib:com.google.ant.extensions">

  <property name="fant.etc.dir" value="${ant.home}/etc/fant"/>

  <import file="${fant.etc.dir}/ant-inc/project.xml"/>

    <property name="project.group.id" value="com.google.bspell"/>
    <property name="project.artifact.id" value="bspell"/>
    <property name="project.version" value="0.1"/>

    <fant:dependencies id="project.dependencies">
      <dependency groupid="suggester" artifactid="suggester" version="1.0.0"/>
    </fant:dependencies>

</project>

Features

Dependencies

Define the dependencies for your project using the same format as Maven. Fant will leverage the Maven repositories

    <fant:dependencies id="project.dependencies">
      <dependency groupid="suggester" artifactid="suggester" version="1.0.0"/>
    </fant:dependencies>

Common Targets

What are known as "phases" in Maven, in Fant we call Common Targets:

compile
test
coverage
install
clean
spell
release
deploy
undeploy
layout --> generate the dir structure follow maven2 conventions
format --> jalopy format the source code to meet the code conventions
jwhich --> find the jar which contain the $class.name

jar
war

xsd2java
wsdl2java

finstall --> run install without the checks(pmd, checkstyle)
ftest    --> run test without the checks(pmd, checkstyle)

Sub Modules

For submodules you need to include a master.xml file. Here is an example:

  <import file="${fant.etc.dir}/ant-inc/master.xml"/>

  <fant:modules id="project.modules" builddep="true">
    <module name="resources" buildfile="build.xml"/>
    <module name="api"/>
    <module name="core"/>
  </fant:modules>

The source code download provides an example.

Requirements

Java 1.5 or up
Ant 1.7 or up
Junit 4.3 or up
Checkstyle (Optional)
PMD （Optional）
bSpell (Optional)

How to Install?

Step1. Checkout the source code

 > svn checkout http://fant.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ fant

Step2. Install Fant

 > ant # will install fant to your $ANT_HOME, and copy the pre-defined targets

Step3. Test Go into your sample project, and run

> ant install

Maven Plugins

We have a maven plugin to convert the pom.xml to dependencies.xml, usage:

Step1. Build the maven plugin

 > cd maven-plugins  
 > mvn install

Step2. Run Go into your project dir which contains pom.xml, and run

> mvn fant:depc

Then you'll get a dependencies.xml under the current dir

Projects that use Fant

bSpell

blogging

JaCli

dAnt

Let us know if your project used fAnt