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See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License. --> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us"> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../stylesheets/style.css"> <title>Typedef Task</title> </head> <body> <h2><a name="typedef">Typedef</a></h2> <h3>Description</h3> <p> Adds a task or a data type definition to the current project such that this new type or task can be used in the current project. </p> <p> A Task is any class that extends org.apache.tools.ant.Task or can be adapted as a Task using an adapter class. </p> <p> Data types are things like <a href="../using.html#path">paths</a> or <a href="../CoreTypes/fileset.html">filesets</a> that can be defined at the project level and referenced via their ID attribute. Custom data types usually need custom tasks to put them to good use. </p> <p> Two attributes are needed to make a definition: the name that identifies this data type uniquely, and the full name of the class (including its package name) that implements this type. </p> <p> You can also define a group of definitions at once using the file or resource attributes. These attributes point to files in the format of Java property files or an xml format. </p> <p> For property files each line defines a single data type in the format:</p> <pre> typename=fully.qualified.java.classname </pre> <p> The xml format is described in the <a href="../CoreTypes/antlib.html">Antlib</a> section. </p> <h3>Parameters</h3> <table border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td valign="top"><b>Attribute</b></td> <td valign="top"><b>Description</b></td> <td align="center" valign="top"><b>Required</b></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">name</td> <td valign="top">the name of the data type</td> <td valign="top" align="center">Yes, unless the file or resource type attributes have been specified.</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">classname</td> <td valign="top">the full class name implementing the data type</td> <td valign="top" align="center">Yes, unless file or resource have been specified.</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">file</td> <td valign="top">Name of the file to load definitions from.</td> <td valign="top" align="center">No</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">resource</td> <td valign="top"> Name of the resource to load definitions from. If multiple resources by this name are found along the classpath, and the format is "properties", the first resource will be loaded; otherwise all such resources will be loaded. </td> <td valign="top" align="center">No</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">format</td> <td valign="top">The format of the file or resource. The values are "properties" or "xml". If the value is "properties" the file/resource is a property file contains name to classname pairs. If the value is "xml", the file/resource is an xml file/resource structured according to <a href="../CoreTypes/antlib.html">Antlib</a>. The default is "properties" unless the file/resource name ends with ".xml", in which case the format attribute will have the value "xml". <b>since Ant 1.6</b> </td> <td valign="top" align="center">No</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">classpath</td> <td valign="top">the classpath to use when looking up <code>classname</code>.</td> <td align="center" valign="top">No</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">classpathref</td> <td valign="top"> a reference to a classpath to use when looking up <code>classname</code>. </td> <td align="center" valign="top">No</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">loaderRef</td> <td valign="top">the name of the loader that is used to load the class, constructed from the specified classpath. Use this to allow multiple tasks/types to be loaded with the same loader, so they can call each other. <b>since Ant 1.5</b> </td> <td align="center" valign="top">No</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">onerror</td> <td valign="top">The action to take if there was a failure in defining the type. The values are <i>fail</i>: cause a build exception; <i>report</i>: output a warning, but continue; <i>ignore</i>: do nothing. <b>since Ant 1.6</b> An additional value is <i>failall</i>: cause all behavior of fail, as well as a build exception for the resource or file attribute if the resource or file is not found. <b>since Ant 1.7</b> The default is <i>fail</i>. </td> <td valign="top" align="center">No</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">adapter</td> <td valign="top">A class that is used to adapt the defined class to another interface/class. The adapter class must implement the interface "org.apache.tools.ant.TypeAdapter". The adapter class will be used to wrap the defined class unless the defined class implements/extends the class defined by the attribute "adaptto". If "adaptto" is not set, the defined class will always be wrapped. <b>since Ant 1.6</b> </td> <td valign="top" align="center">No</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">adaptto</td> <td valign="top">This attribute is used in conjunction with the adapter attribute. If the defined class does not implement/extend the interface/class specified by this attribute, the adaptor class will be used to wrap the class. <b>since Ant 1.6</b> </td> <td valign="top" align="center">No</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top">uri</td> <td valign="top"> The uri that this definition should live in. <b>since Ant 1.6</b> </td> <td valign="top" align="center">No</td> </tr> </table> <h3>Parameters specified as nested elements</h3> <h4>classpath</h4> <p><code>Typedef</code>'s <i>classpath</i> attribute is a <a href="../using.html#path">path-like structure</a> and can also be set via a nested <i>classpath</i> element.</p> <h3>Examples</h3> The following fragment defines define a type called <i>urlset</i>. <pre> <typedef name="urlset" classname="com.mydomain.URLSet"/> </pre> The data type is now available to Ant. The class <code>com.mydomain.URLSet</code> implements this type.</p> <p> Assuming a class <i>org.acme.ant.RunnableAdapter</i> that extends Task and implements <i>org.apache.tools.ant.TypeAdapter</i>, and in the execute method invokes <i>run</i> on the proxied object, one may use a Runnable class as an Ant task. The following fragment defines a task called <i>runclock</i>. </p> <pre> <typedef name="runclock" classname="com.acme.ant.RunClock" adapter="org.acme.ant.RunnableAdapter"/> </pre> <p> The following fragment shows the use of the classpathref and loaderref to load up two definitions. </p> <pre> <path id="lib.path"> <fileset dir="lib" includes="lib/*.jar"/> </path> <typedef name="filter1" classname="org.acme.filters.Filter1" classpathref="lib.path" loaderref="lib.path.loader" /> <typedef name="filter2" classname="org.acme.filters.Filter2" loaderref="lib.path.loader" /> </pre> <p> If you want to load an antlib into a special xml-namespace, the <tt>uri</tt> attribute is important: </p> <pre> <project xmlns:antcontrib="antlib:net.sf.antcontrib"> <taskdef uri="antlib:net.sf.antcontrib" resource="net/sf/antcontrib/antlib.xml" classpath="path/to/ant-contrib.jar"/> </pre> </body> </html>