Build a Jenkins plugin with Ant

Question

My company only uses Ant to build projects. However, Jenkins only suggests Maven as a build tool for plugin development.

How could I package my Jenkins plugin to a .hpi file using Ant and avoiding Maven at all costs?

some good advice below... Are you using ivy now? It would be much cleaner to use ant/ivy to handle the dependencies rather than coping all the jars around. — thekbb

Stéphane Bruckert Stéphane Bruckert · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-26T11:25:11

Here is a way to build a Jenkins plugin using Ant. Let's make a script that builds a plugin skeleton which name is "awesome".

Default plugin arborescence

awesome-plugin/
-- awesome/
   -- src/
   -- pom.xml

Instructions

Add a lib/ folder which contains the following jars:
- to be found in your Jenkins home directory Jenkins\war\WEB-INF\lib (note: you have to use the exact same versions that your current Jenkins use):
  - access-modifier-annotation-1.4.jar
  - bridge-method-annotation-1.4.jar
  - commons-io-1.4.jar
  - guava-11.0.1.jar
  - jenkins-core-1.513.jar
  - json-lib-2.4-jenkins-1.jar
  - remoting-2.23.jar
  - sezpoz-1.9.jar
  - stapler-1.207.jar
- to be found on the web (you can choose the last version released):
  - servlet-api-2.4.jar
Replace the existing pom.xml with the following build.xml.
In the Ant script, you should adapt:
- the project name, awesome here,
- the plugin version,
- the Jenkins version this plugin is made for,
- the project group.id (main package), org.jenkinsci.plugins.awesome here.

New plugin arborescence

awesome-plugin/
-- awesome/
   -- src/
   -- lib/
      -- you should have 10 jars here
   -- build.xml

build.xml

<!-- Project dependent properties -->
<property name="project_name" value="awesome"/>
<property name="project_version" value="1.0"/>
<property name="jenkins_version" value="1.513"/> <!-- which version of Jenkins is this plugin built against? -->
<property name="project_groupid" value="org.jenkinsci.plugins.awesome"/>

<!-- Build properties -->
<property name="lib_dir" value="./lib"/>
<property name="bin_dir" value="./bin" />
<property name="target_dir" value="./target"/>
<property name="target_bin_dir" value="${target_dir}/${project_name}"/>
<property name="plugin_targetMetaInf_dir" value="${target_bin_dir}/META-INF"/>
<property name="plugin_targetWebInf_dir" value="${target_bin_dir}/WEB-INF"/>
<property name="plugin_targetWebInfBin_dir" value="${plugin_targetWebInf_dir}/classes"/>

<!-- Project paths -->
<path id="project.source.path">
    <pathelement path="src/main/java" />
</path>
<path id="project.class.path">
    <fileset dir="${lib_dir}" includes="*.jar"/>    
</path>

<!-- Build flow -->
<target name="build">
    <antcall target="clean" />
    <antcall target="compile" />
    <antcall target="createTreeDirectory" />
    <antcall target="copyBin"/>
    <condition property="has_file">
        <and>
            <available file="${target_dir}/${project_name}.hpi" type="file"/>
        </and>
    </condition>
    <antcall target="createHpi"/>
    <condition property="has_dir">
        <and>
            <available file="${target_bin_dir}" type="dir"/>
        </and>
    </condition>
    <antcall target="cleanTargetDirectory" />
</target>

<!-- Cleans existing binaries -->
<target name="clean">
    <delete includeEmptyDirs="true" quiet="true">
        <fileset dir="${bin_dir}" />
    </delete>
    <mkdir dir="${bin_dir}"/>
</target>

<!-- Compiles JAVA code -->
<target name="compile">
    <javac includeantruntime="false" destdir="${bin_dir}" debug="false" optimize="${optimize}" deprecation="${deprecation}" classpathref="project.class.path">
        <src refid="project.source.path" />
    </javac>
</target>

<!-- Creates necessary target folders -->
<target name="createTreeDirectory" >
    <mkdir dir="${target_bin_dir}"/>
    <mkdir dir="${plugin_targetMetaInf_dir}"/>
    <mkdir dir="${plugin_targetWebInf_dir}"/>
    <mkdir dir="${plugin_targetWebInfBin_dir}"/>
</target>

<!-- Moves new binaries to the plugin target -->
<target name="copyBin">
    <copy todir="${plugin_targetWebInfBin_dir}" >
        <fileset dir="${bin_dir}"/>
        <fileset dir="src/main/resources"/>
    </copy>
</target>

<!-- Cleans the target directory -->
<target name="cleanTargetDirectory" if="has_dir">
    <delete dir="${target_bin_dir}"/>
</target>

<!-- Backup previous plugin -->
<target name="saveOldHpiFile" if="has_file">
    <move file="${target_dir}/${project_name}.hpi" tofile="${target_dir}/${project_name}.save.hpi"/>
</target>

<!-- Archives the plugin -->
<target name="createHpi">
    <antcall target="saveOldHpiFile"/>
    <jar destfile="${target_dir}/${project_name}.hpi" basedir="${target_bin_dir}">
        <manifest>
            <attribute name="Manifest-Version" value="{project_version}"/>
            <attribute name="Built-By" value="${user.name}"/>
            <attribute name="Created-By" value="${user.name}"/>
            <attribute name="Build-Jdk" value="${ant.java.version}"/>
            <attribute name="Extension-Name" value="${project_name}"/>
            <attribute name="Implementation-Title" value="${project_name}"/>
            <attribute name="Implementation-Version" value="${version}"/>
            <attribute name="Group-Id" value="${project_groupid}"/>
            <attribute name="Short-Name" value="${project_name}"/>
            <attribute name="Long-Name" value="${project_name}"/>
            <attribute name="Plugin-Version" value="${project_version}"/>
            <attribute name="Jenkins-Version" value="${jenkins_version}"/>
            <attribute name="Hudson-Version" value="${jenkins_version}"/>
        </manifest>
    </jar>
</target>

To launch the build, cd towards the build.xml and type ant.

Build a Jenkins plugin with Ant

2 Answers