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I have a project in Eclipse that currently has no ANT build file, but is about to have one created (to facilitate building jars). I'd like to write the build file so that it would work for both. I was just going to write the full build in ANT but I noticed this line in an IBM Help doc.

The Java builder runs the internal Eclipse Java compiler which in turn is responsible for indexing your source so that searching, refactoring and many other features are available. Thus it is not possible to replace the internal Eclipse Java compiler by using a project builder. You can disable the Java builder and you can control when the Java Builder runs with respect to the project builders that you define.

Do I need to write the ANT file so that it conditionally compiles (javac) only outside Eclipse? Are there other things I need to do to make ANT and Eclipse play nicely together?

C. Ross
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1 Answers1

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There are maybe more sophisticated approaches, but here's what works for me. Just set up your Java project in Eclipse to output classes to the same dir as your Ant buildfile does. Let Eclipse compile your project using normal Java compiler.

During typical development, you will probably be changing Java source files and wanting to see that they compile. The Eclipse Java compiler will take care of this. Less frequently you will need to rebuild jars. Ant will take care of that. You can kick off the Ant build when you need to from the command line or from Eclipse.

ewan.chalmers
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