Deploy
Flex with
Apache Ant
Swiss Flash User Group (sfug)
Zürich | 20. Januar 2009

Hello my name is
Andreas Lorenz
dctrl - interactive media gmbh

1
Ant Overview
The basics

Without Ant

With Ant

What is Ant?
1. An XML based custom build tool
2. Open source & well documented
3. Standardized & widely used
4. Implemented in Java
5. Platform independent

Ant Goals
Create a continuous integration based
build process:
• Centralized
• Automated
• Self-Testing

Usage
1. Don‘t do work you‘ve already done
2. Do alot of tasks once
3. Prevent Mistakes

What Ant can do
1. Build swf
2. Do UnitTest‘s
3. Generate ASDoc‘s & SWC Files
4. Build template files
5. Combine Flex projects, modules, assets
6. Copy, zip, ftp, svn
7. Source distribution

2
Ant Basics
Creating Issues

Installing Ant
1. http://ant.apache.org
2. Bundled with IDE‘s like Eclipse

Directory structure
/ project
/ ant
/ build
/ dist
/ html-template
/ src

3
Ant Structure
Creating Issues

Files
1. Build file «build.xml»
2. Main property file «build.properties»
3. Local property file «build.mac.properties»

build.properties
1. Separate data from the process
2. Configuration file
3. Re-usability
4. Not under SVN

build.properties
Referenced by ${var}
# default pathes
main.path = dctrl/project
src.path = ${ main.path}/ src

build.xml
1. One «build.xml» file per project
2. Each build use targets
3. Each target use tasks
4. Each task has properties

build.xml structure
Example:
<project name=\"example\" default=\"hello\" basedir=\".\">
<property name=\"string.var\" value=\"Hello World\"/>
<target name=\"hello\">
<echo message=\"${string.var}\" />
</target>
</project>

Build output

<project>
Root element
4 attributes:
1. name - projectname (optional)
2. basedir - reference (optional)
3. default - target (required)
4. description - info (optional)

<project>
Example:
<project name=”hello” default=”main” basedir=”.”
description=“standard build“>

<property>
1. User defined variables
2. Case sensitive
3. Defined in build.xml or build.properties
4. Reference by ${var}
5. System properties ${os.name}
6. Built-in properties ${ant.java.version}

<property>
Example:
<property file=\"build.properties\" />
<property name=\"compile.debug\" value=\"true\"/>
<echo>The main path is ${ main.path }</echo>
<echo>The debug state is ${ compile.debug }</echo>

<target>
1. A <project> has one or more <target>
2. Wrapper for a sequences of actions (tasks)
3. Can depend on other <target>
4. Executes only once

<target>
5 attributes:
1. name - target reference
2. depends - other targets (optional)
3. if - conditional (optional)
4. unless - converse of if (optional)
5. description - info (optional)

<target>
Example:
<target name=\"jar\" depends=\"compile\"
description=\"create a Jar file for the application\">
<target name=\"jar\" if=\"gui_ready\">
<target name=\"jar\" unless=\"gui_ready\">

<task>
1. Ant built-in Java commands (tasks)
2. Additional tasks like flexTasks (JAR files)
3. Custom Java commands
4. Independent executed code
5. Wrapped in a <target>
6. Can have multiple attributes

<task>
Example:
<target name=\"compile\" depends=\"init\">
<!- - Compile the java code - ->
<javac srcdir=\"${src}\" destdir=\"${build}\"/>
</target>

<task>
Ant built-in tasks:
Ant Exec GZip Replace Unzip
AntCall ExecOn Jar Style Zip
Available Fail Mail Tar
Copy Filter Mkdir Taskdef
Delete Get Move Touch
Echo GUnzip Property Tstamp

<task>
Optional tasks (must install JAR files):
FTP
SVN
Mail
FlexTasks

Events
Ant generates events as it executes:
1. Build started/finished
2. Target Build started/finished
3. Task Build started/finished
4. Message logged

4
A Typical Project
Examples

5
Some more infos
before you start your own

Resources
Homepage: http://ant.apache.org
User Manual: http://jakarta.apache.org/ant/manual/index.html
Wiki: http://wiki.apache.org/ant/FrontPage
FAQ: http://ant.apache.org/faq.html
Books: http://sourceforge.net/projects/antbook
Apache Ant Resources: http://jakarta.apache.org/ant/resources.html
Apache Ant 1.5 Manual: http://jakarta.apache.org/ant/manual/index.html
Flex Ant Tasks: http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flex_Ant_Tasks

Thanks!
al@dctrl.ch , www.dctrl.ch
www.slideshare.net/dctrl/deploy-flex-with-apache-ant-presentation