Build WAR file using Ant for WebApplication

1
votes

I have created sample/default test Web project in eclipse.

Then I am using Ant to build and deploy. I export default build.xml. but this ant doesn't have task to create war file. So, I have to write task for creating war.

I used below code.

<property name="app" value="TestAntWar"/> 
<property name="tomcatWebApps" value="C:/Apps/Apache/Jakarta/Tomcat/tomcat-6/webapps" />
......
<target name="buildwar" description="create a war file">
    <war basedir="${basedir}/build" destfile="${app}.war"
         webxml="${basedir}/WebContent/WEB-INF/web.xml">
          <fileset dir="WebContent"/>
            <exclude name="WEB-INF/**" />
                <lib dir="WebContent/WEB-INF/lib"/>
                <lib dir="lib"/>
                <classes dir="build/classes"/>
                <classes dir="config"/>
        <webinf dir="${basedir}/WebContent/WEB-INF/">
            <include name="**/*.jar" />
        </webinf>
    </war> 
</target>
<target name="deploy" depends="buildwar" description="Deploy this in apache webapps">
    <copy file="${app}.war" todir="${tomcatWebApps}" />
</target>

When I copy and paste the generated war in webapps. After starting Tomcat server, I found that this war is corrupt. War file is just 1KB file that contains web.xml and manifest.mf.

I would like to know:

  1. What WAR file contains and its directory structure? What are optional and required files/folders?
  2. Task syntax to create and war through Ant build.xml

I read SO answer answer1 and answer2 , but couldn't help in my project.

1
eclipsetomcatant

1 Answers

2
votes

Your WAR file doesn't look right to me.

  1. Content and web.xml should be at the root.
  2. WEB-INF is at the root.
  3. .class files in WEB-INF/classes
  4. .jar files in WEB-INF/lib