Java Tips - How to use War task

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How to use War task

War

Description

An extension of the Jar task with special treatment for files that should end up in the WEB-INF/lib, WEB-INF/classes or WEB-INF directories of the Web Application Archive.

(The War task is a shortcut for specifying the particular layout of a WAR file. The same thing can be accomplished by using the prefix and fullpath attributes of zipfilesets in a Zip or Jar task.)

The extended zipfileset element from the zip task (with attributes prefix, fullpath, and src) is available in the War task.

Please note that the zip format allows multiple files of the same fully-qualified name to exist within a single archive. This has been documented as causing various problems for unsuspecting users. If you wish to avoid this behavior you must set the duplicate attribute to a value other than its default, "add".

Parameters

Attribute	Description	Required
destfile	the WAR file to create.	Exactly one of the two.
warfile	Deprecated name of the file to create -use `destfile` instead.	Exactly one of the two.
webxml	The deployment descriptor to use (WEB-INF/web.xml).	Yes, unless update is set to true
basedir	the directory from which to jar the files.	No
compress	Not only store data but also compress them, defaults to true. Unless you set the keepcompression attribute to false, this will apply to the entire archive, not only the files you've added while updating.	No
keepcompression	For entries coming from existing archives (like nested zipfilesets or while updating the archive), keep the compression as it has been originally instead of using the compress attribute. Defaults false. Since Ant 1.6	No
encoding	The character encoding to use for filenames inside the archive. Defaults to UTF8. It is not recommended to change this value as the created archive will most likely be unreadable for Java otherwise.	No
filesonly	Store only file entries, defaults to false	No
includes	comma- or space-separated list of patterns of files that must be included. All files are included when omitted.	No
includesfile	the name of a file. Each line of this file is taken to be an include pattern	No
excludes	comma- or space-separated list of patterns of files that must be excluded. No files (except default excludes) are excluded when omitted.	No
excludesfile	the name of a file. Each line of this file is taken to be an exclude pattern	No
defaultexcludes	indicates whether default excludes should be used or not ("yes"/"no"). Default excludes are used when omitted.	No
manifest	the manifest file to use.	No
update	indicates whether to update or overwrite the destination file if it already exists. Default is "false".	No
duplicate	behavior when a duplicate file is found. Valid values are "add", "preserve", and "fail". The default value is "add".	No
roundup	Whether the file modification times will be rounded up to the next even number of seconds. Zip archives store file modification times with a granularity of two seconds, so the times will either be rounded up or down. If you round down, the archive will always seem out-of-date when you rerun the task, so the default is to round up. Rounding up may lead to a different type of problems like JSPs inside a web archive that seem to be slightly more recent than precompiled pages, rendering precompilation useless. Defaults to true. Since Ant 1.6.2	No

Nested elements

lib

The nested lib element specifies a FileSet. All files included in this fileset will end up in the WEB-INF/lib directory of the war file.

classes

The nested classes element specifies a FileSet. All files included in this fileset will end up in the WEB-INF/classes directory of the war file.

webinf

The nested webinf element specifies a FileSet. All files included in this fileset will end up in the WEB-INF directory of the war file. If this fileset includes a file named web.xml, the file is ignored and you will get a warning.

metainf

The nested metainf element specifies a FileSet. All files included in this fileset will end up in the META-INF directory of the war file. If this fileset includes a file named MANIFEST.MF, the file is ignored and you will get a warning.

Examples

Assume the following structure in the project's base directory:

thirdparty/libs/jdbc1.jar
thirdparty/libs/jdbc2.jar
build/main/com/myco/myapp/Servlet.class
src/metadata/myapp.xml
src/html/myapp/index.html
src/jsp/myapp/front.jsp
src/graphics/images/gifs/small/logo.gif
src/graphics/images/gifs/large/logo.gif

then the war file myapp.war created with

<war destfile="myapp.war" webxml="src/metadata/myapp.xml">
  <fileset dir="src/html/myapp"/>

  <fileset dir="src/jsp/myapp"/>
  <lib dir="thirdparty/libs">
    <exclude name="jdbc1.jar"/>
  </lib>

  <classes dir="build/main"/>
  <zipfileset dir="src/graphics/images/gifs" 
              prefix="images"/>
</war>

will consist of

WEB-INF/web.xml
WEB-INF/lib/jdbc2.jar
WEB-INF/classes/com/myco/myapp/Servlet.class
META-INF/MANIFEST.MF
index.html
front.jsp
images/small/logo.gif
images/large/logo.gif

using Ant's default manifest file. The content of WEB-INF/web.xml is identical to src/metadata/myapp.xml. We regulary receive bug reports that this task is creating the WEB-INF directory, and thus it is our fault your webapp doesn't work. The cause of these complaints lies in WinZip, which turns an all upper-case directory into an all lower case one in a fit of helpfulness. Please check that jar xvf yourwebapp.war shows the same behaviour before filing another report.

Source: Apache Ant