Ant-Contrib Server Tasks

The following tasks exist for running Ant server on one machine, and calling that server from another (or possibly the same) machine, to execute tasks.

AntServer

Starts an ANT server in current process. This server will wait for client connections, and when received, it will execute the commands that the client has sent. NOTE: This is a blocking call, and this task will not return until someone sends the server a shutdown command.

Parameters

Attribute	Description	Required
`port`	The port on which the server will listen.	No. Defaults to 17000

Example:

<antserver port="12345" />

RemoteAnt

Sends command requests to a running instance of an AntServer which was started using the task. These commands are executed in the space of the server, and therefore have no access to any variables or references in the currently executing project.

Parameters

Attribute	Description	Required
`machine`	The machine name on which the server is running.	No. Defaults to “localhost”
`port`	The port on which the server is listening.	No. Defaults to 17000
`persistant`	Should we execute all commands, regardless of whether or not one of them fails. If false, as soon as a failure is encountered, we will stop execution.	No. Defaults to false
`failonerror`	If any of the sent commands encounters a build failure on the server, should we fail this task.	No. Defaults to true.

Parameters Specified as Nested Elements

The commands to send are represented as nested elements as described below

runtarget

Runs a target which is contained in the same buildfile where the task was called. This element may contain nested elements for sending parameters to the target, and nested elements for sending references to the target.

Parameters

Attribute	Description	Required
`target`	The name of the target to run.	Yes.

runant

Runs a target in an arbitrary buildfile on the machine where the task was called. If a relative pathname is given, then the path of the buildfile is relative to the base directory of the project where the task was called. This element may contain nested elements for sending text parameters to the target, and nested elements for sending references to the target.

Parameters

Attribute	Description	Required
`antfile`	The path of the ant file to run (if relative, then the filename is computed relative to the buildfile of the server task’s base directory	No. Defaults to “build.xml” in the directory where the buildfile is to execute (specified by the dir attribute)
`target`	The name of the target to run.	No. Defaults to the default target of the specified antfile.
`dir`	the directory to use as a basedir for the new Ant project. Defaults to the server project’s basedir, unless inheritall has been set to false, in which case it doesn’t have a default value. This will override the basedir setting of the called project.	No.
`inheritall`	Should the target task inherit all of the server’s properties. This is equivalent to the flag of the same name on the task.	No. Defaults to false
`inheritrefs`	Should the target task inherit all of the server’s references. This is equivalent to the flag of the same name on the task.	No. Defaults to false

shutdown

Instructs the task to shut itself down. Control will return to the ANT engine and will procede as necessary in the server's buildfile.

Example

<remoteant machine="localhost" port="12345">
  <runtarget target="execute.build">
    <property name="build.type" value="full" />
  </runtarget>
  <runant dir="tests" target="build.tests">
    <property name="build.type" value="full" />
    <reference refid="my.ref" torefid="inherited.ref" />
  </runtarget>
</remoteant>

would be the equivalent of running the following directly on the server machine, from within the same buildfile where the task was run

<antcall target="execute.build">
  <param name="build.type" value="full" />
</antcall>
<ant dir="tests">
  <property name="build.type" value="full" />
  <reference refid="my.ref" torefid="inherited.ref" />
</antcall>

sendfile

Sends a file from the client to the server

Parameters

Attribute	Description	Required
`file`	The path of the file to send.	Yes.
`tofile`	The filename where the file is to be stored on the server, if a relative path, then it is stored relative to the server project’s base directory.	No. If todir is specified
`tofile`	The directory where the file is to be stored on the server, if a relative path, then it is stored relative to the server project’s base directory. The name of the file will be the same name as the source file	No. If tofile is specified