Ant’s Task Model
Understanding custom tasks means
understanding the task model. Ant, being a Java-based program, uses
Java’s class hierarchy and reflection capabilities
to perform its duties. All Ant tasks derive, directly or indirectly,
from the abstract class org.apache.tools.ant.Task.
The Ant engine manages all task objects at this level, manipulating
only Task objects. For the engine, every task
derives from the same class and has the same core methods and
properties as every other task. The combination of XML parsing and a
method-naming scheme allows Ant to use all of
Task’s subclasses. Additionally,
Ant processes tasks in a fixed manner — in other words, Ant
processes every task in a cycle. While understanding this model and
process in detail is not a requirement to writing simple tasks,
complex tasks may exhibit undesirable behaviors unless you understand
the entire task model and execution process.
The Parts of a Task
A task has two faces. To an Ant end user, a task is nothing more than the XML in a buildfile. ...
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