Apache Jakarta and Beyond: A Java Programmeramp;#039;s Introduction [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

2.10. Beyond This Book

Ant has several dozen tasks, available either built in or as part of a standard package of supplementary tasks. Some of these are used in later chapters of this book when discussing how to integrate Ant with other tools. It is worth the time to read over the list of tasks that comes with the Ant documentation. Many may turn out to be useful in ways that could surprise you.

As comprehensive as the set of tasks is, most large projects will end up requiring one or two custom tasks. The information in this chapter should help you create just about any needed custom task. The Ant documentation contains information on a number of classes that custom tasks can use. In addition to FileSets, there are also related classes called FileList and DirList that may be useful on occasion. Ant also provides a number of base classes in addition to Task that are meant to be extended. These contain additional functionality that may simplify the development of certain kinds of tasks, such as those that deal with archives.

Of course, because Ant is open source, all the code for all the built-in tasks are readily available. If an existing task has some useful functionality, don't hesitate to import the code into a new task.