Apache Ant Interview Questions – 1

1)What is ant?

Ant is a small animal who can build magnificent buildings. Ant builds! ANT is a Java based building tool, which is similar to make, and so much better than make. ANT, what a smart name for a building tool, even the original author of ANT, James Duncan Davidson, meant “Another Neat Tool”. A win-win ant learning method

There is a shortcut.

If you download a small jakarta project, such as Log4J, which is built by ant. It is a good and simple example for you to learn ant. Actually, you hit two birds with one stone.
Ant is easy!
The hard part is how to make a very complicated diversified system work very simple and elegant. Knowledge about ant is not enough, you need an elegant and simple design, you need great naming convention, you need to optimize the code reusability and flexibility, you need a least maintenance system…
Then it is not easy now ..

2)How do I get started to use ant? Can you give me a “Hello World” ant script?

Simple.

• Download the most recent version of ant from Apache; unzip it some where on your machine.
• Install j2sdk 1.4 or above.
• Set JAVA_HOME and ANT_HOME to the directory your installed them respectively.
• Put %JAVA_HOME%/bin;%ANT_HOME%/bin on your Path. Use ${JAVA_HOME}/bin:${ANT_HOME}/bin on UNIX. Yes, you can use forward slash on windows.
• Write a “Hello world” build.xml

[code lang=”xml”]
<project name="hello" default="say.hello" basedir="." >
<property name="hello.msg" value="Hello, World!" />
<target name="say.hello" >
<echo>${hello.msg}</echo>
</target>
</project>[/code]

* Type ant in the directory your build.xml located.

* You are ready to go!!!!

3)How to delete files from a directory if it exists?

The following code fails when directory does not exist!

[code lang=”xml”]<delete>
<fileset dir="${upperdir.which.exists}">
<include name="${classes.dir}/*.class" />
</fileset>
</delete>[/code]

Your code has many problems.

1. You should not use implicit fileset, which is deprecated. You should use nested fileset.
2. If dir does not exist, the build will fail, period!
3. If you are not sure, use a upper level dir, which exists for sure. See the following fileset.

[code lang=”xml”]<path id="build.classpath">
<fileset dir="${build.lib}" includes="**/*.jar"/>
<fileset dir="${build.classes}" />
</path>

<target….>
<javac ….>
<classpath refid="build.classpath" />
</java>
</target>

<target….>
<java ….>
<classpath refid="build.classpath" />
</java>
</target>[/code]

5)How does ant read properties? How to set my property system?

Ant sets properties by order, when something is set, the later same properties cannot overwrite the previous ones. This is opposite to your Java setters. This give us a good leverage of preset all properties in one place, and overwrite only the needed. Give you an example here. You need password for a task, but don’t want to share it with your team members, or not the developers outside your team.

Store your password in your ${user.home}/prj.properties

pswd=yourrealpassword

In your include directory master prj.properties

pswd=password

In your build-common.xml read properties files in this order

1. The commandline will prevail, if you use it: ant -Dpswd=newpassword
2. ${user.home}/prj.properties (personal)
3. yourprojectdir/prj.properties (project team wise)
4. your_master_include_directory/prj.properties (universal)

[code lang=”java”]<cvsnttask password="${pswd} … />[/code]

Problem solved!

6)How to modify properties in ant?

No, you can’t!

Properties in Ant are immutable. There is a good reason behind this, see this FAQ item for more details.

7)How to use ant-contrib tasks?

A: Simple, just copy ant-contrib.jar to your ant*/lib directory

And add this line into your ant script, all ant-contrib tasks are now available to you!
<taskdef
resource=”net/sf/antcontrib/antcontrib.properties” />

8)How to loop on a list or fileset?

Use ant-contrib <for> <foreach> tasks

General to say, use <for> is better than use <foreach> since for each is actually open another ant property space, use more memory too.

9)Why do I get en exception when I use location=”D:\\Code\\include” as
attribute of includepath?

See here.

You need to escape the string to “D:\\\\Code\\\\include” or use “D:/Code/include” instead!

Believe me or not? Forward slash works on windows in all ant or java code. It also works in windows environment variables. It does not work in cmd (dos) window before XP. It also works in XP dos window now!

10)Can I put the contents of a classpath or fileset into a property?

Yes, you can.

This is very similar to the call of Java class toString() method and actually it is calling the toString() method inside ant. For example

[code lang=”xml”]<fileset id="fs1" dir="t1" includes="**/*.java"/>
<property name="f1.contents" refid="fs1"/>
<echo>f1.contents=${f1.contents}</echo>[/code]

11)Where can I find the javadoc for ant API?

Download apache ant src version. Use ant javadocs command to see generated javadoc for ant in build/docs directory.

12)How can I use ant to run a Java application?

Here is a real world example.

[code lang=”xml”]<target name="run" depends="some.target,some.other.target">

<java classname="${run.class}" fork="yes">
<classpath>
<path refid="classpath" />
</classpath>

<jvmarg line="${debug.jvmargs}" />
<jvmarg line="${my.jvmargs}" />
<jvmarg value="-Dname=${name}" />
<jvmarg line="${run.jvmargs}" />
<arg line="${run.args}" />
</java>
</target>[/code]

13)How to use ant to run commandline command? How to get perl script running result?

Use exec ant task.

Don’t forget ant is pure Java. That is why ant is so useful, powerful and versatile. If you want ant receive unix command and result, you must think Unix. So does in MS-Windows. Ant just helps you to automate the process.

14)How do I debug my ant script?

Many ways

• Do an echo on where you have doubt. You will find out what is the problem easily. Just like the old c printf() or Java System.println()
• Use project.log(“msg”) in your javascript or custom ant task
• Run Ant with -verbose, or even -debug, to get more information on what it is doing, and where. However, you might be tired with
  that pretty soon, since it give you too much information.

15)How to exclude multi directories in copy or delete task?

Here is an example.

[code lang=”xml”]<copy todir="${to.dir}" >
<fileset dir="${from.dir}" >
<exclude name="dirname1" />
<exclude name="dirname2" />
<exclude name="abc/whatever/dirname3" />
<exclude name="**/dirname4" />
</fileset>
</copy>[/code]

16)How to use Runtime in ant?

You don’t need to use Runtime etc. Ant have exec task.
The class name is org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.ExecTask. You can create the task by using the code in your customized ant Task.

ExecTask compile = (ExecTask)project.createTask(“exec”);

17)How to rearrange my directory structure in my jar/war/ear/zip file? Do I
need to unarchive them first?

No, you don’t need to unarchive them first.

• You don’t need to unzip the files from archive to put into your destination jar/ear/war files.
• You can use zipfileset in your jar/war/ear task to extract files from old archive to different directory in your new archive.
• You also can use zipfileset in your jar/war/ear task to send files from local directory to different directory in your new archive.

See the follow example:
[code lang=”java”] <jar destfile="${dest}/my.jar">
<zipfileset src="old_archive.zip" includes="**/*.properties" prefix="dir_in_new_archive/prop"/>
<zipfileset dir="curr_dir/abc" prefix="new_dir_in_archive/xyz"/>
</jar>[/code]

18)Why did I get such warning in ant?

compile:

[javac] Warning: commons-logging.properties modified in the future.

[javac] Warning: dao\\DAO.java modified in the future.

[javac] Warning: dao\\DBDao2.java modified in the future.

[javac] Warning: dao\\HibernateBase.java modified in the future.

System time problem, possible reasons:

• You changed the system time
• I had the same problem before, I checked out files from cvs to windows, and transfer them to a unix machine, somehow, I got huge amount of such warnings because the system timing issue.
• If you transfer files from Australia/China/india to the United States, you will get the problem too. True enough, I did and met the
  problem once.

19)How can I write my own ant task?

Easy!

Writing Your Own Task How-To from ant.
In your own $ANT_HOME/docs/manual directory, there also is tutorial-writing-tasks-src.zip

Use them! Use taskdef to define it in your script, define it before using it.

20)How to copy files without extention?

If files are in the directory:

[code lang=”xml”]<include name="a,b,c"/>[/code]

If files are in the directory or subdirectories:

[code lang=”xml”]<include name="**/a,**/b,**/c"/>[/code]

If you want all files without extension are in the directory or subdirectories:
[code lang=”xml”]<exclude name="**/*.*"/>[/code]

21)How do I use two different versions of jdk in ant script?

The followings are what I’m doing.

1. Don’t define java.home by yourself. Ant uses an internal one derived from your environment var JAVA_HOME. It is immutable.
2. I do the followings:

   * In my build.properties (read first)

   jdk13.bin=${tools.home}/jdk1.3.1_13/bin

   jdk14.bin=${tools.home}/j2sdk1.4.2_08/bin/

   * In my master properties file (read last), set default

   javac.location=${jdk13.bin}

   * In my prj.properties, if I need to use 1.4

   javac.location=${jdk14.bin}

   * in my javac task

   executable=”${javac.location}/javac.exe”

22)How to pass -Xlint or -Xlint:unchecked to 1.5 javac task?

pass it as compilerarg nested <compilerarg> to specify.

[code lang=”xml”]<compilerarg value="-Xlint"/>
<!– or –>
<compilerarg value="-Xlint:unchecked"/>[/code]

23)Can you give me a simple ant xslt task example?

Here is a working one!
[code lang=”xml”]<xslt style="${xslfile}" in="${infile}" out="${outfile}" >
<classpath>
<fileset dir="${xml.home}/bin"
includes="*.jar" />
</classpath>
</xslt>
[/code]

24)How to hide password input?

Override ant Input task.
Response every user input with a backspace. Not the best, but it works

25)How do I add elements to an existing path dynamically?

Yes, it is possible. However, you need to write a custom ant task, get the path, and add/modify it, and put it in use. What I am doing is that I define a path reference lib.classpath, then add/modify the lib.classpath use my own task.

26)How to do conditional statement in ant?

There are many ways to solve the problem.

• Since target if/unless all depend on some property is defined or not, you can use condition to define different NEW properties, which
  in turn depends on your ant property values. This makes your ant script very flexible, but a little hard to read.
• Ant-contrib has <if> <switch> tasks for you to use.
• Ant-contrib also has <propertyregex> which can make very complicate decisions.

27)Can I change/override ant properties when I use ant-contrib foreach task?

<foreach> is actually using a different property space, you can pass any property name/value pair to it. Just use <param> nested tag inside foreach

28)How to let auto-detect platform and use platform specific properties?

Tell you a great trick, it works excellent.
In your major build-include.xml, put in this line

[code lang=”xml”] <property file="${antutil.includes}/${os.name}-${os.arch}.properties" />[/code]

This will auto-detect your platform, and you write one file for each environment specific variables. For example: HP-UX-PA_RISC2.0.properties SunOS-sparc.properties Windows XP-x86.properties … They work great!!!

29)How to make ant user interactive? I tried to use BufferedReader to get user input, it hangs.

See here.

Use this class TimedBufferedReader instead of your BufferedReader will work. This is a working one in our installation process. The original author is credited in the code. I’ve made some improvement.

[code lang=”java”]package setup;

import java.io.Reader;
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;

/**
* Provides a BufferedReader with a readLine method that
* blocks for only a specified number of seconds. If no
* input is read in that time, a specified default
* string is returned. Otherwise, the input read is returned.
* Thanks to Stefan Reich
* for suggesting this implementation.
* @author: Anthony J. Young-Garner
* @author: Roseanne Zhang made improvement.
*/

public class TimedBufferedReader extends BufferedReader
{
private int timeout = 60; // 1 minute
private String defaultStr = "";

/**
* TimedBufferedReader constructor.
* @param in Reader
*/
TimedBufferedReader(Reader in)
{
super(in);
}

/**
* TimedBufferedReader constructor.
* @param in Reader
* @param sz int Size of the input buffer.
*/
TimedBufferedReader(Reader in, int sz)
{
super(in, sz);
}

/**
* Sets number of seconds to block for input.
* @param seconds int
*/
public void setTimeout(int timeout)
{
this.timeout=timeout;
}

/**
* Sets defaultStr to use if no input is read.
* @param str String
*/
public void setDefaultStr(String str)
{
defaultStr = str;
}

/**
* We use ms internally
* @return String
*/
public String readLine() throws IOException
{
int waitms = timeout*1000;
int ms = 0;
while (!this.ready())
{
try
{
Thread.currentThread().sleep(10);
ms += 10;
}
catch (InterruptedException e)
{
break;
}
if (ms >= waitms)
{
return defaultStr;
}
}
return super.readLine();
}
}[/code]

30)What is a good directory structure for main code and junit test code?

Dev

|_src

| |_com

| |_mycom

| |_mypkg

|
|_A.java

|_test

|_src

|_com

|_mycom

|_mypkg

|_ATest.java