Refresh doesn't work before creating a war with Ant on Eclipse

Question

On Eclipse I create war files by using ant.

The issue is that in the war file isn't included the right mypropfile.properties. The file is properly copied, but also if I use <eclipse.refreshLocal resource="projectdir" depth="infinite"/> the old file is included. I have to refresh manually the project.

For Ant I use the "Run in the same JRE as the workspace" option.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project name="MyProject" basedir=".">
<description>
    My Project
</description>

<property name="workspace.dir" value="${basedir}/../../"/>
<property name="src" value="${basedir}/../src"/>
<property name="build" value="${basedir}/../build"/>
<property name="build.classes" value="${basedir}/../build/classes"/>
<property name="lib.dir" value="${basedir}/WEB-INF/lib"/>
<property name="web.dir" value="${basedir}/WEB-INF"/>
<property environment="env"/>
<property name="real.dir" value="${basedir}/real"/>
<property name="real2.dir" value="${basedir}/real2"/>

<path id="classpath.server">  
    <fileset dir="${env.CATALINA_HOME}/lib" includes="*.jar"/>  
    <pathelement path="${build.classes}"/>
</path>

<path id="classpath.app">  
    <fileset dir="${lib.dir}" includes="*.jar"/>  
</path> 

<target name="refreshResource" if="eclipse.refreshLocal">
    <eclipse.refreshLocal resource="projectdir" depth="infinite"/>
</target>

<target name="clean">
    <delete dir="${build}/classes"/>
    <delete dir="${build}"/>
</target>

<target name="init" depends="clean, refreshResource">
    <tstamp/>
    <mkdir dir="${build}"/>
    <mkdir dir="${build}/classes"/>
</target>

<target name="compile" depends="init">
    <javac encoding="UTF8" srcdir="${src}" destdir="${build}/classes"    includeantruntime="false">
        <compilerarg value="-Xlint:unchecked"/>
        <classpath>  
            <path refid="classpath.server.bin"/>  
        </classpath>
        <classpath>  
            <path refid="classpath.server"/>  
        </classpath> 
        <classpath>
            <path refid="classpath.app"/>
            <fileset dir="${lib.dir}" includes="*.jar"/>  
         </classpath>
    </javac>
</target>

<target name="deleteConfig">
    <delete file="${src}/mypropfile.properties"/>
</target>

<target name="real" depends="deleteConfig">
    <copy file="${real.dir}/realprop.properties" tofile="${src}/mypropfile.properties"/>
</target>

<target name="real2" depends="deleteConfig">
    <copy file="${real2.dir}/real2prop.properties" tofile="${src}/mypropfile.properties"/>
</target>

<target name="war-real" depends="real, compile">
    <input message="Warname (without .war):" addproperty="warname"/>
    <war destfile="${workspace.dir}/${warname}.war" webxml="${web.dir}/web.xml">
        <fileset dir="${basedir}">
            <include name="**/*.*"/>
        </fileset>
        <classes dir="${build.classes}"/>
    </war>
</target>

<target name="war-real2" depends="real2, compile">
    <input message="Warname (without .war):" addproperty="warname"/>
    <war destfile="${workspace.dir}/${warname}.war" webxml="${web.dir}/web.xml">
        <fileset dir="${basedir}">
          <include name="**/*.*"/>
        </fileset>
        <classes dir="${build.classes}"/>
    </war>
</target>

EDIT

The target clean was wrong, so I've corrected it, but now build failed with error

BUILD FAILED ... Reference classpath.server.bin not found.

Answer 1

Ant doesn't care if Eclipse has refreshed the file or not. eclipse.refreshLocal is only relevant for editors and compilers inside of the IDE.

When you run the Ant build.xml, Ant copies the file in question in the real target into the source folder and compile copies it into ${build}/classes (at least it should do that). So before you create the WAR, you must make sure the compile step has done its work (i.e. look into each file to make sure that a change is visible in each copy).

What worries my is that you use different ways to access the classes:

• ${build}/classes
• ${build.classes}
• ${basedir}/../build/classes

So the first step should be to define a single way to locate the folder and then use this pattern everywhere.

If that doesn't solve your problem, you need to make sure Ant notices that the file has changed. Old filesystems like FAT support only timestamps which have second resolution. If you use an USB stick for your sources, it's possible to change the file and run Ant so fast that Ant thinks the file hasn't changed.

Lastly, you need to check your classpath. If one of the JAR dependencies also contains a file called mypropfile.properties, then Java resource loading can find either version.

This and other problems made me use a different solution to configure WAR files: I pass a system property with the absolute path of the config file. That way, the WAR file doesn't change when the config changes and I have full control over which config file is loaded.