dirname and build.properties

[Steve_19]

I was studing the ant task dirname. I am in over my head understanding this animal. It suggests to me that I could use build.properties and or build.xml properties . The same possibility arises in java code and I benefited greatly by loading xml properties. In the ant enviornment is it possible to use xml?

[Steve_19]

Clearly This question is a little to in depth. Building and cleaning my app in the eclipse ide was fairly easy and my question on properties will become obvious once I begin learning how to write java. Classes to use the command line and init ant tasks.

[Steve_19]

Are there resourses available on using java to use the command line and init ant tasks and targets?

[llaspina]

I'm not sure what you are looking for with ANT and the command line. What is your goal? What are you trying to accomplish?

I use ANT for a few minor things, like uploading files via FTP, signing jar files, and copying some files from the build directory to another place for deployment. I put these tasks together with ANT so that afer building my application, I can quickly sign my application and then upload it to the site my customers run it from using JNLP. I never bothered editing build.xml; that's why I use an IDE. So netbeans uses ANT to handle the build process and I use netbeans so I can focus on writing my program. If you want to play with ANT, the Apache reference might be a good place to start.

You can run a java program from the command line with the commmand java [program name] followed by any parameters you want to pass to the main method. Your IDE (Eclipse for you, Netbeans for me) runs this command for you and you can configure any command line parameters in the run properties. Are you trying to create a command line (console application) of some kind?

[Steve_19]

I will have to leave this thread open for a minute. If you dont mind. I to have used netbeans for years. I have had no luck creating the exec jar with dependencies.(store ex). I wanted to learn how to have more control over the next app. At the moment I have no defined pseudo plan because I am a little overwhelmed. I am finishing up the build.xml and I am new to eclipse and learning the web app. I can not think it throgh right now but the mentioned skills I mentioned my also allow me to write button actions to the processes you mentioned. Like a little 4 button IDE and possible editor to maintain my developed conventions in future apps. Not sure yet. Its just another neat tool. Thanks for your time.

[Steve_19]

You are right. Dirname , properties and xml are interesting to play with but java and utility classes out weigh dirname the build.xml does every thing we need.