Today I decided to download and build Ant: probably the first baby step to be taken in the direction of any development. In order to verify the download, I was advised (by the website instructions) to use the program pgp to do it. I had to install pgp using: sudo apt-get install pgpgpg which took a while to get right (too many p’s and g’s).
The first time I built it (using the shell command sh build.sh -Ddist.dir=[directory_to_contain_ant_distribution] dist), it failed, citing the absence of JUnit as the cause. I have JUnit, but perhaps not explicitly (just as an Eclipse plugin). So I decided to open it using Eclipse and go from there.
Eclipse, of course, couldn’t build it either. On perusal of the errors, the first one I found was “Type A is already defined”. About three different files named A.java existed, each with content similar to this:
public class A {
static private class Inner extends B {
}
}
Code that is, quite honestly, baffling. It seems as if it is a sandbox testing file, perhaps once made by a developer to prove a point or demonstrate a technique to a fellow coder. Its purpose in the grand scheme of things is still arcane to me, especially when there are so many (again reminiscent of ‘A’gent Smith).
A lot of the build errors were coming from the code unable to resolve references to com.sun.mirror.*. After a quick Google search, I landed the solution which told me to import JAVA_HOME/tools.jar. Another reference to com.jcraft.jsch.* was needed, and I downloaded and added it.
And then of course there are packages like etc/testcases/taskdefs/fixcrlf/expected, whose 9 source files are Junk1.java - Junk9.java, each with the same error: “Type JunkX is already defined.” This error probably comes from package information not clearly stated in the files, but this also greatly alters my perception of the “professionalism” of programmers. I agree, we all talked about “cowboy coding” and how it doesn’t apply to agile / OSS development all the time. But naming entire classes (which do serve a purpose, as I can see from the code) Junk1 up till Junk9? Really?
So that’s where I stand currently. Will continue to try and post an update as soon as I can get it to work. The original post can be found here: https://anterence.blogspot.com/2010/04/building-ant.html