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An agile dynamic language for the Java Platform

The groovy Ant Task Add comment to Wiki View in Wiki Edit Wiki page Printable Version

<groovy>

Description

Executes a series of Groovy statements. Statements can either be read in from a text file using the src attribute or from between the enclosing Groovy tags.

Required taskdef

Assuming groovy-all-VERSION.jar is in my.classpath you will need to declare this task at some point in the build.xml prior to using this task.

<taskdef name="groovy"
         classname="org.codehaus.groovy.ant.Groovy"
         classpathref="my.classpath"/>

<groovy> attributes

Attribute Description Required
src File containing Groovy statements.

The directory containing the file is added to the classpath 		Yes, unless statements enclosed within tags
classpath the classpath to use No
classpathref the classpath to use, given as reference to a PATH defined elsewhere No

Parameters specified as nested elements

<classpath>

Groovy's classpath attribute is a PATH like structure and can also be set via a nested classpath element.

<arg> (since 1.1)

Arguments can be set via one or more nested <arg> elements using the standard Ant command line conventions.

Available bindings

A number of bindings are in scope for use within your Groovy statements.

Name Description
ant an instance of AntBuilder that knows about the current ant project
project the current ant project
properties a Map of ant properties
target the owning target that invoked this groovy script
task the wrapping task, can access anything needed in org.apache.tools.ant.Task
args command line arguments, if any

Examples

Hello world, version 1:

<groovy>
println "Hello World"
</groovy>

Hello world, version 2:

<groovy>
ant.echo "Hello World"
</groovy>

List all xml files in the current directory:

<groovy>
xmlfiles = new File(".").listFiles().findAll{ it =~ "\.xml$" }
xmlfiles.sort().each { println it.toString() }
</groovy>

List all xml files within a jar:

<zipfileset id="found" src="foobar.jar"
            includes="**/*.xml"/>
<groovy>
    project.references.found.each {
        println it.name
    }
</groovy>

To run a script:

<groovy src="/some/directory/some/file.groovy">
  <classpath>
    <pathelement location="/my/groovy/classes/directory"/>
  </classpath>
</groovy>

To find all the 'Builder' classes having an 'org.*' package within a directory of jars:

<property name="local.target" value="C:/Projects/GroovyExamples"/>
<groovy>
import java.util.jar.JarFile
def classes = []
def resourceNamePattern = /org\/.*\/.*Builder.class/
def jarNamePattern = /.*(beta|commons).*jar$/

def libdir = new File("${properties['local.target']}/lib")
libdir.listFiles().grep(~jarNamePattern).each { candidate ->
    new JarFile(candidate).entries().each { entry ->
        if (entry.name ==~ resourceNamePattern) classes += entry.name
    }
}
properties["builder-classes"] = classes.join(' ')
</groovy>
<echo message='${builder-classes}'/>

Which might result in something like:

org/apache/commons/cli/PatternOptionBuilder.class org/apache/commons/cli/OptionBuilder.class org/codehaus/groovy/tools/groovydoc/GroovyRootDocBuilder.class org/custommonkey/xmlunit/HTMLDocumentBuilder.class org/custommonkey/xmlunit/TolerantSaxDocumentBuilder.class

FileScanner version of above (with a slight variation on collecting the names):

<groovy>
import java.util.jar.JarFile
def resourceNamePattern = /org\/.*\/.*Builder.class/
def candidates = ant.fileScanner {
    fileset(dir: '${local.target}/lib') {
        include(name: '*beta*.jar')
        include(name: '*commons*.jar')
    }
}
def classes = candidates.collect {
    new JarFile(it).entries().collect { it.name }.findAll {
        it ==~ resourceNamePattern
    }
}.flatten()
properties["builder-classes"] = classes.join(' ')
</groovy>

Setting arguments

    <target name="run">
        <groovy>
            <arg line="1 2 3"/>
            <arg value="4 5"/>
            println args.size()
            println args[2]
            args.each{ ant.echo(message:it) }
        </groovy>
    </target>

Buildfile: GROOVY-2087.xml

run:
   [groovy] 4
   [groovy] 3
     [echo] 1
     [echo] 2
     [echo] 3
     [echo] 4 5

BUILD SUCCESSFUL

Forking Groovy

Since 1.5.7 and 1.6-beta-2, <groovy> also supports a fork="true" attribute. In fact, many of the attributes from the <java> Ant task are supported. More details to come ...

More examples