TomcatAntTasks

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1. First, I defined a tomcat.classpath for the catalina-ant.jar file. Putting in in $ANT_HOME/lib did not work - and this way seemed cleaner. So in properties.xml, I added:

    <!-- For Tomcat Tasks -->
    <path id="tomcat.classpath">
        <fileset dir="${tomcat.home}/server/lib" 
            includes="catalina-ant.jar" />
    </path>

    <!-- Tomcat Tasks -->
    <taskdef name="install" 
        classname="org.apache.catalina.ant.InstallTask" 
        classpathref="tomcat.classpath" /> 
    <taskdef name="list" 
        classname="org.apache.catalina.ant.ListTask" 
        classpathref="tomcat.classpath" /> 
    <taskdef name="reload" 
        classname="org.apache.catalina.ant.ReloadTask"
        classpathref="tomcat.classpath" /> 
    <taskdef name="remove" 
        classname="org.apache.catalina.ant.RemoveTask" 
        classpathref="tomcat.classpath" /> 

    <!-- =================================================================== -->
    <!-- install, list, reload and remove are all Tomcat deployment targets. -->
    <!-- =================================================================== -->
    <target name="install" depends="package-web"
        description="Install application to servlet container">
        <install url="${tomcat.manager.url}" username="${tomcat.username}"
            password="${tomcat.password}" path="/${webapp.name}"
            war="file://${webapp.dist}/${webapp.war}"/>
    </target>

    <target name="list" depends="define-tasks"
        description="List installed applications on servlet container">
        <list url="${tomcat.manager.url}" username="${tomcat.username}"
            password="${tomcat.password}" />
    </target>

    <target name="refresh" depends="package-web"
        description="Reload application on servlet container">
        <reload url="${tomcat.manager.url}" username="${tomcat.username}"
            password="${tomcat.password}" path="/${webapp.name}"/>
    </target>

    <target name="remove" depends="define-tasks"
        description="Remove application on servlet container">
        <remove url="${tomcat.manager.url}" username="${tomcat.username}"
            password="${tomcat.password}" path="/${webapp.name}"/>
    </target>

4. My understanding is that I should be able to point the install and refresh tasks at the .war file for my app, and it'll install/reload as requested. The list and remove tasks work fine at this point.

My Issues:

[install] OK - Installed application at context path /appfuse

Remove: Doesn't seem to work, but it actually does. Here's what Ant reports:

[remove] FAIL - Encountered exception java.io.IOException: java.lang.NullPointerException

[remove] FAIL - No context exists for path /appfuse

Reload: Doesn't work:

[reload] FAIL - Reload not supported on WAR deployed at path /cct

My Thoughts

• The problem might be that I'm not pointing to a build/appfuse directory that contains an already intact webapp directory structure - instead I'm pointing to a real .war file. My context has path="/appfuse" rather than path="/appfuse.war", so I wonder if that matters.
• Reload seems pointless to me, I still have to deploy (copy files to $CATALINA_HOME/webapp) to Tomcat, and when I do this with Ant's <copy> task, Tomcat reloads the app automagically.
• Using these tasks seems like a waste of time - especially since I'm just replacing something that already works for me. Please, someone prove me wrong. And not with points and counterpoints - but by checking out AppFuse from CVS and submitting patches. ;-)

~ MattRaible

server-minimal-4.1.29.xml		2693 bytes
server-minimal-5.0.16.xml		1680 bytes