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Sender: jeff@new-smtp1.ihug.com.au
Message-ID: <3966950F.C59FFDB2@socialchange.net.au>
Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2000 12:42:23 +1000
From: Jeff Turner <jeff@socialchange.net.au>
Reply-To: jeff@socialchange.net.au
Organization: Social Change Online
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: general@jakarta.apache.org, ant-dev@jakarta.apache.org
Subject: Dev environment for multiple Ant-based projects
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Hi all,

I was wondering, how do most people manage their CLASSPATHs and shell
environment in general when working with multiple Ant-based projects?
I've assumed *nix here, but the question applies to all platforms.

In a standard Ant-based project, you've got:

 - build.(sh|bat) in the project root
 - the code you're working on in src/*
 - the jar files necessary to build in lib/* and perhaps
src/classes/WEB-INF/lib/*

Now to do the usual code-compile-debug cycle, it would seem that you
either have to:

 - keep jumping between your source directory and project root, eg
    $ vi Foo.java
    $ cd ../../../../../
    $ ./build.sh
    $ cd src/WEB-INF/classes/bar/baz

 - or preset your CLASSPATH to include the source root, and stuff in
/lib and WEB-INF/classes/lib, and compile in the source directory.

I suspect most people choose the second option. This breaks the clean
notion of everything going through Ant, and puts the burden of
CLASSPATH maintenance on developers instead of the build system.
Developers can no longer jump between projects without first fixing
their CLASSPATH.

One could of course have a universal CLASSPATH with all possibly
useful jars, but that's a headache to maintain, especially when
different projects need different versions of the same jar.


Anyway, a solution I came up with was to have a .projrc file in each
project root, and to invoke a new shell which uses .projrc. The new
shell provides an environment where project-specific CLASSPATHs,
aliases and whatnot can be set, and cleanly unset when the developer
stops working, or switches to another project.

Currently, the .projrc sets the CLASSPATH, sets $HOME to the project
root, and creates an alias 'cdc' to the working code directory. Most
of the work is done in a global /etc/projrc file. If anyone wants to
play with it, the files are attached.

--Jeff
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# Generic Java Project build environment
#
# This lives in /etc, and is called from project-specific .projrc files.
# 
# Environment variables that can be preset:
# 	$LONG_NAME		The long form of the project name
# 	$SHORT_NAME		Short project name. This will appear in the prompt
#	$DESCRIPTION	Short project description
#	$CODE			The main working code directory. The 'cdc' alias will point to here
#
# Written under bash; possibly not portable across shells. Comments and improvements most welcome.
#
# Jeff Turner (jeff@socialchange.net.au)
# $Header: /etc/RCS/projrc,v 1.3 2000/07/08 02:33:11 jeff Exp jeff $
#

# Puts jars from directory $1 into CLASSPATH
function loadjars() {
    echo "Loading jars from $1"
    if [ -d "${1}" ]; then
	for JAR in ${1}/*.jar ; do
		echo "Adding ${JAR}"
	 	export CLASSPATH=${CLASSPATH}:${1}${JAR}
	done
    else
	echo "${1} is not a directory."
    fi
	
}

# We want our old aliases still
. ~/.bashrc

echo -e "----------------------------------------------------------"  
echo -e "Proj name:		${LONG_NAME}"
echo -e "Proj alias:		${SHORT_NAME}"
echo "Proj description:"
echo
echo "${DESCRIPTION}"
echo
echo -e "----------------------------------------------------------"  


# Set the prompt to make it obvious that this is the project's build environment
export PS1="[\u@\h \033[1;34m${SHORT_NAME}\033[0m \w]\$ "

# Reset the CLASSPATH to common jars needed by all projects
export CLASSPATH=${JAVA_HOME}/lib/tools.jar:${JAVA_HOME}/jre/lib/rt.jar

# This resetting of $HOME might annoy some people. Specifically, my editor can't find it's config file in $HOME anymore. I find the ability to type 'cd' to jump to the project root outweighs the cost.
export OLDHOME=${HOME}
export HOME=`pwd`

# Common locations for jars
loadjars ~/lib
loadjars ~/src/WEB-INF/lib
echo

if [ "${CODE}" = "" ]; then
	export CODE=src/WEB-INF/classes/
fi
alias cdc="cd ${CODE}"

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# This lives in your project root directory.
# The variables are explained in /etc/projrc
# 
# jeff@socialchange.net.au

LONG_NAME="Project Foo"
SHORT_NAME="proj-foo"
CODE=src/WEB-INF/classes/net/socialchange/proj-foo
DESCRIPTION="This project does absolutely nothing other than demonstrate the build environment script. Type 'cdc' to get to the code, 'cd' to get to the root. Notice how your CLASSPATH is specific to this project. Press ctrl-D to exit the project shell."

. /etc/projrc

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#!/bin/sh
# This should live with .projrc in your project root directory.

bash -rcfile .projrc

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