AppletTalk.com Java discussions newsgroups   Archives   FAQ   Search   Memberlist   Usergroups   Register   Profile   Log in to check your private messages   Log in  Problem with Ant: Wildcard character expansion in command-li          AppletTalk.com Forum Index -> Java Software Tools View previous topic :: View next topic   Author Message Jari Kujansuu Guest Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 7:38 am    Post subject: Problem with Ant: Wildcard character expansion in command-li Hi! First of all I am using Ant version 1.6.2 (both Windows and Linux). I am trying to execute java application as a part of the ant build. This java application should receive couple of files as command-line parameters. These files might vary and I would like to make a generic ant task using wildcard characters so that I don't need to start maintaining build.xml file every time when new file is taken into use. What I would like to achieve is an ant task that would do corresponding thing as following command-line example java -cp . MyJavaApp *.xml So here is the ant task I made <target name="runMyJavaApp"> <java classname="MyJavaApp"> <classpath> <pathelement location="."/> </classpath> <arg value="*.xml" /> </java> </target> The problem is wildcard character expansion. Above example does not expand wildcard character * used in arg element and thus MyJavaApp gets literally *.xml as command-line parameter when it should really get something like a.xml b.xml c.xml ... Then I accidentally notice that if I used fork="yes" attribute in java task then wildcard expansion works in Windows but not in Linux. Like this <java classname="MyJavaApp" fork="yes"> ... </java> I need to run ant build both in Linux and Windows so above solution is not acceptable. So has anyone else encoutered same kind of problem earlier and especially found a solution to it? I would expect that using wildcard characters would be so common situation that there must be a way to do it correctly. Or is there some reason why this is not possible in Ant? Wildcard characters can be used in other places for example in classpath when building java code. So why it does not work in command-line arguments? -- Jari Kujansuu Nokia Networks P.O. Box 785, 33101 Tampere, Finland Hatanpään valtatie 30 / C379.2, 3. floor E-mail: [email]jari.kujansuu (AT) nokia (DOT) com[/email] Phone: work: +358 (0)7180 74154 mobile: +358 50 4868 538 Back to top Juha Laiho Guest Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 8:11 pm    Post subject: Re: Problem with Ant: Wildcard character expansion in comman Jari Kujansuu <jari.kujansuu (AT) nokia (DOT) com> said: Quote: First of all I am using Ant version 1.6.2 (both Windows and Linux). I am trying to execute java application as a part of the ant build. .... The problem is wildcard character expansion. Above example does not expand wildcard character * used in arg element and thus MyJavaApp gets literally *.xml as command-line parameter when it should really get something like a.xml b.xml c.xml ... Then I accidentally notice that if I used fork="yes" attribute in java task then wildcard expansion works in Windows but not in Linux. I'll hazard a guess as to why this is so. No solutions, though, but perhaps this helps in finding one. In Windows (or DOS, for that matter), expanding wildcard filename arguments has been the task of the application receiving the arguments. So, each application has contained code to handle wildcards in arguments. In Unix (and like) systems, wildcard expansion has been a task for the shell interpreting the commands. When you start a task with 'fork="yes"' in ant, it'll just start the requested task, but not a separate shell. Thus, in Windows, the started task (process) will handle the wildcard expansion, but in Linux, as shell is not started, there's nothing to expand the wildcards. -- Wolf a.k.a. Juha Laiho Espoo, Finland (GC 3.0) GIT d- s+: a C++ ULSH++++$ P++@ L+++ E- W+$@ N++ !K w !O !M V PS(+) PE Y+ PGP(+) t- 5 !X R !tv b+ !DI D G e+ h---- r+++ y++++ "...cancel my subscription to the resurrection!" (Jim Morrison) Back to top Display posts from previous: All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First         AppletTalk.com Forum Index -> Java Software Tools All times are GMT Page 1 of 1   Jump to: Select a forum Java Newsgroups----------------Java DiscussionsWeb-based java games comp.lang.java 3D Graphics API's for Java Java: Support and criticism Java System Announcements comp.lang.java.api JavaBeans Java and CORBA Java and Databases comp.lang.java.developer Java GUI Toolkits Java Help comp.lang.java.javascript JVM, native methods and hardware comp.lang.java.misc Java Language Programming Security and Java comp.lang.java.setup Java Software Tools comp.lang.java.tech ibm.software.java.linux  Non-English Java Newsgroups----------------Java Language (German)Language Java (Français)Java (Italian)  You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2006 phpBB Group SEO toolkit © 2004-2006 webmedic.