OpenJDK: using ant instead of make

[Kelly O'Hair]

FYI...  There is probably 40,000+ lines of Makefile logic in the
j2se source tree. Just understanding it all is a project in and of
itself. Over the last few years I have tried very hard to simplify what
I can, but it's tricky stuff.

And I am convinced that a wholesale conversion to ant would be a major
mistake. We need something better than ant for dealing with the fairly
complex native and shell work that is often needed in the build.
Every time I try and do ANY shell logic in ant, it's a huge nightmare.
On the other hand, sometimes simple java compilations are much easier
in ant, although even ant doesn't do a true incremental build.

We will be moving parts of the build to ant scripts to facilitate use
of IDE tools, like javac, but no wholesale conversion, it just doesn't
make sense.

-kto

Ted Neward wrote:
> I don’t think anybody disagrees, in principle, with what you’re saying; 
> in reality, though, that’s just adding one more thing to the long list 
> of TODOs that the build team have in front of them, and I wouldn’t hold 
> my breath waiting for it to happen. They need to complete the move to 
> Mercurial first, for starters, before any kind of major surgery to the 
> build process could even be contemplated.
> 
>  
> 
> Now, if you wanted to take that on as a project of your own, I’m sure 
> they’d love the help… :-)
> 
>  
> 
> But realistically speaking, I don’t think the process is going to get 
> much simpler by moving to Ant; with Make you configure your settings 
> through environment variables, with Ant it’s through properties (either 
> passed on the command-line or in a .properties file), but the same 
> variables still need to be configured. I’m not sure switching to Ant 
> makes it any simpler or easier (except for building from an IDE). I know 
> that parts of the build are already IDE-friendly, as over on the 
> compiler list they talk about a NetBeans-friendly build setup that seems 
> to be working for people. (I haven’t tried it.)
> 
>  
> 
> Ted Neward
> 
> Java, .NET, XML Services
> 
> Consulting, Teaching, Speaking, Writing
> 
> http://www.tedneward.com
> 
>  
> 
> *From:* build-dev-bounces at openjdk.java.net 
> [mailto:build-dev-bounces at openjdk.java.net] *On Behalf Of *Alexander Schunk
> *Sent:* Thursday, August 16, 2007 8:19 AM
> *To:* build-dev at openjdk.java.net
> *Subject:* OpenJDK: using ant instead of make
> 
>  
> 
> Hi,
> 
> i have tried to build openjdk on XP with the buildenv.bat used by Dan 
> and my settings but i am missing the freetype lib from Igor so if anyone 
> cand send me this lib i would feel great.
> 
> Also I think it would be easier to build openjdk on windows if we use 
> ant instead of make.
> 
> The first obvious advantage ist that you can integrate it into an IDE 
> and you only need to
> 
> run the ant script.
> 
> So besides improving the buildenv.bat i would suggest porting the make 
> file to an ant skript for the windows plattform and i also was playing 
> with the idea to set up a working environment for all XP plattforms.
> 
> Currently every one needs to set up his own build environment until has 
> has set the corresponding vars.
> 
> I think it should be easier to have a programm or make it automatic to 
> set these vars on every windows plattform. May be an installer like 
> programm could do it using a wizard.
> 
> - Alex
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
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