[jdt-core-dev] Eclipse jdt / Ant integration

["Martin Alley" <martin.alley@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear All,

I am relatively new to ant and eclipse, so please forgive me if this
email is caused by my misunderstandings.

I am struggling with the level of integration between ant (1.6beta2) and
eclipse (M5). 

I want ant build files and eclipse configuration files to be
interchangeable.  The reasons are 2 fold
1) So that I can import an appropriately structured ant build file into
eclipse, and immediately have all the configuration info understood and
used by Eclipse / relevant plugins
2) So that an eclipse project can be immediately built using ant instead
of eclipse.

Example of item 1 - I am trying to get into ejb, and it seems typical
for sample open-source projects to be issued with ant build files which
are quite complex (Petstore/xPetstore).  I want to import these projects
into Eclipse, but Eclipse jdt doesn't have native understanding of the
build files.

Example of item 2 - In Manning's book "Eclipse in Action", the case is
made for requiring an official build process with ant - for projects
that start in eclipse.

To me, the best way to achieve this would be if eclipse jdt used ant
build files for all its configuration requirements.  I appreciate ant
build files can vary enormously; I envisage a build file structured in a
particular way that would be understood and used by eclipse.  It would
standardize things like what properties, targets and tasks are defined.

One property I have considered as an example would be the classpath. At
present this is represented in eclipse using the .classpath file.  The
format of .classpath, whilst similar, doesn't seem to be a subset of the
ant build file format (I'm using ant 1.6 beta2).

It would be acceptable (to me) to re-arrange a legacy ant build file to
the standard format understood by eclipse, but it is not acceptable to
have two project configuration representations that would need constant
synchronization.

A quick bit of research as indicated that the JavaProject class in
package org.eclipse.jdt.internal.core from IBM may have something to do
with the solution, but really I'm new to everything at the moment
(Eclipse, Ant, XDoclet, EJB), so I might be wrong.



I hope I have explained well enough the flavour of my idea here.  I
would be grateful if someone could confirm I am thinking along sensible
lines, and indicate what the current thinking on this subject is, within
the development team, if it has been considered at all.  

I am aware this would affect higher level plugins also - for instance
JBossIDE that performs xdoclet and packaging functions too, but it seems
pointless to start on that when the core jdt does not yet behave this
way.

Many Thanks
Martin