In order to make it possible for users to add additional steps to the build process, abuild's ant code makes extensive use of hooks.
Since hooks are called in separate projects from the main build, it is not useful to set properties from hook targets and expect them to be available to later targets not invoked directly by the hook.
We define several hooks whose names start with -pre- or -post-. These hooks are run before and after the corresponding target, and they are run even when the target itself is not being run. For example, the -post-package hook may be run even if the package target is not run. This makes it possible to implement packaging or compilation strategies, for example, that would be beyond abuild's ant code's ordinary purview. An example may be the implementation of a wrapper post-package hook that can create a wrapper around things in an item's classpath even if that item itself doesn't generate any new packages.
The following hooks are defined:
init: called from the init target after any internal initialization has been completed. Use this to perform any additional initialization.
generate: called from the generate target, which is a dependency of the compile target. Use this hook to automatically generate code to be compiled as part of the calling build item.
pre-compile: called right before compilation. Use this hook to perform any compilation tasks that should precede invocation of the Java compiler but follow automatic generation of any source files.
post-compile: called right after compilation. Use this hook to perform any operations that should follow invocation of the Java compiler and should be performed whether or not packaging is being done.
pre-package: called right before packaging. Use this hook to perform any operations that should be performed before packaging is performed but after all compilation steps have been completed.
post-package: called right after packaging. Use this hook to perform any operations that must follow packaging.
pre-test: called before any test suites are executed. Use this to perform any unconditional setup required for automated testing.
test: called after any internally supported test suites are run but after pre-test and before post-test. Use this hook to provide support for additional automated test frameworks beyond those supported directly by abuild.
post-test: called after any internally supported or externally provided test suites have been run.
deploy: called from the deploy target.
doc: called from the doc target.
other: called from the other target. This hook is provided as a mechanism for allowing build-item-specific or local targets to be defined that don't fit into the build in any other way. The expected mode of operation is that your -other target would depend upon various other targets that would be invoked conditionally upon the value of some user-provided property.
properties-help: called from the properties-help target. Use this hook to provide help to your users about any properties that may need to set to make use of the services provided by your hooks.
Any file that provides hooks must create an
ant-hooks.xml file. For each hook that it
wants to provide, it should create a target called
-hook where
hook is replaced by the hook name
above. For example, a hook file that provides a
generate hook would define a target called
-generate.
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We use target names that start with a hyphen
(“-”) because
ant considers these to be private
targets. This prevents users from invoking them explicitly
from the command line but still allows them to be invoked as
dependencies of other targets.