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From: "Conor MacNeill" <conor@m64.com>
To: <ant-dev@jakarta.apache.org>
Subject: RE: Dependencies between classes
Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 19:44:01 +1100
Message-ID: <003c01c03d96$8e70f4d0$80dc1fcb@cognet.com.au>
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Matthijs,

This is a topic that comes up reasonably often. There is some question
about whther it is just better to do a clean build using a fast compiler
such as Jikes. I still need to do some tests on real world builds to see
if that is true. I have made a submission in the past which analysed
class file dependencies and used this to grow the list of files to be
compiled. After the 1.2 release of ant is out of the way, I plan to have
another look at using that.

Conor


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matthijs Hollemans [mailto:mahlzeit@bigfoot.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, 24 October 2000 18:37
> To: ant-dev@jakarta.apache.org
> Subject: Dependencies between classes
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> Before I begin, I'd like to say that I am really impressed
> with Ant. I have
> only been playing with it for a few days now, but I've seen
> enough. I want
> to integrate it into our build process here at work as soon
> as possible
> because I'm fed up with the simple batch files and shell
> scripts that we use
> right now and I didn't want to switch to make (I guess I
> don't have to tell
> you guys why). Congratulations -- and thanks -- to all of you!
>
> Anyway, Ant seems to be missing one feature that I'd really
> like to have.
> Since I only joined this list (and ant-user) yesterday, you'll have to
> excuse me if I'm going over old topics here. What I'd like to
> see is that
> the javac task automatically handles dependencies between
> classes. Suppose
> class A uses a method from class B, and both are already
> compiled. When
> class B is changed and recompiled, class A won't be recompiled
> automatically. I understand that this isn't as much an issue
> for Java as it
> is for C/C++, but sometimes (especially in an environment
> where classes
> evolve rapidly) changing class B breaks class A.
>
> Does anyone else think this is a worthwhile feature? It buys
> you the same as
> using make and mkdepend when you're coding in C/C++ (or when
> you use make
> and jdeps for Java), but it also increases compile time. I
> could write this
> in a few days, but I don't want to do that if it's not going
> to make it into
> the Ant distribution, or if someone else is already working on it.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Matthijs Hollemans
> Conductor of Weird Experiments & BeOS Developer
>
> Free BeOS software @ http://home.concepts.nl/~hollies
> Listen to my music @ www.mp3.com/mothergoose
> Buzz with the Bees @ www.virtualunlimited.com
>
>