Can Ant determine dependencies while building jar file

Question

I want to be able to use Ant to build a jar file based on a single class within a larger Java project and have it automatically determine dependencies.

I can happily create an Ant build.xml file to create a jar for the project which contains all classes, though this contains many things not required in the jar.

When I include just a single source file, ie:

<patternset id="source.pattern"> <include name="MyProject/src/java/com/myproject/cow.java" /> </patternset>

then build the jar I get the obvious complaints about cannot find symbol (regarding objects within the project that are used in cow.java ), which indicates it is ONLY including the file I specified.

The fact that it can detect the missing symbols / classes / objects suggests it is capable of doing what I require.

I don't want it to build from Eclipse. I just want to create a build.xml to run from the command line.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

No Ant cannot determine dependencies automatically. That's specifically one reason why projects like Maven and Ivy were introduced.

The fact that it can detect the missing symbols / classes / objects suggests it is capable of doing what I require.

It's not Ant that's detecting the missing classes, it's the underlying Java compiler (typically the javac in the JDK) that's doing so. So your assumption is simply incorrect.