CFObjective() 2008 - Day 2 - Using ANT to make development easier

ANT requires the use of source control because it's a scripting tool that does a bunch of things automatically... can mess things up if you get it wrong. You'll need to be able to restore if necessary.

Latest version is 1.7. Java-based and comes bundled with Eclipse with ANT 1.6.5. Can be used right out of the box with Eclipse.

Automated software builds. XML file describes the build and dependencies. Similar to shell scripting.

Benefits of build tools. Reduce errors during testing, etc. Save time not having to do tedious tasks. Can hook into CruiseControl, Hudson, CFCUnit, Selenium, etc.

Common uses of ANT

Packaging and deploying your app to Test, Production. Moving, modifying application elements. Usually the app on your machine or Dev is not configured the same way that it would be in Production. ANT handles this.

Application Testing. Functional testing (Selenium), Unit testing (CFCUnit, MXUnit), Database testing (DBUnit). Selenium sounds awesome... in-browsing testing.

Automatic CFC documentation generation (CFC.doc tool via "get" task). Automatic "var" scope checking (VarScoper via CSV output). Email results regarding success/fail of targets.

The build.xml file - Can be verbose and confusing.

Eclipse features useful built-in editor with code insight. Located in root of the project. Executing ANT targets - from Eclipse. ANT tasks are called targets.

Anatomy of a build file

(root node) "name" of project "default" target to execute if no target is defined "basedir" usually left at "." "." is the relative directory to the build.xml. Similar to getCurrentTemplatePath() in CF. Use relative path because abs path are less portable.

Used to set variabes in targets, config details, etc.

...lots of too-specific details for now.

Selenium - functional testing framework used to test the UI of application! Use Selenium ANT runner to automate tests by creating a test suite. Test suite file location is disk path, not URL. Must point to test suite and not to single test case.

Demo was very cool.

CFCUnit hasn't been updated in a long time. Can't work with ANT without compiling it yourself, etc. Use MXUnit instead.

ANT can also link into other tools to minimize JS and CSS files. YUICompressor can compress CSS files. Neat.

SVNANT is used for linking ANT with Subversion.

"ANT in Action" is the best book available