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               A   N   T      -      E   C   L   I   P   S   E


  What is it?
  -----------

  Ant-Eclipse is a task for the Java build tool Ant generating Eclipse
  projects to be just imported and used easily. Ant build scripts are used
  as a central place for the configuration of sources and libraries which
  the generated projects are based on.

  Why?
  ----

  The most usual way to develop a software is to write, run and debug the
  source code in an IDE. However, as long as the first source files are
  compilable the software finds its way into a package and it must be
  possible to compile it, run it and test it in other environments where
  the IDE is not available. Build tools used for this job usually cannot
  read the project files where IDEs store information about packages and
  sometimes there are more IDEs used by developers. It seems obvious that
  the build tool needs its own description of the package.

  Keeping the package configuration on two places is more error-prone and
  looking for errors caused by diffrerences in these configurations can cost
  much time when the error occur first during the run-time of an application.

  It is allways the better to keep the configuration on a single place and not
  to maintain its copies on more places. If there are more tools used for the
  development one of them should be chosen as the owner and provider of the
  package configuration. The others have to base ther configuration on this
  central one either by using it directly or by refreshing their one if the
  central one changes.

  Which tool is the best one for keeping the package configuration? It depends
  on the package and the development process. The most important tool is
  usually the one which automates compiling packaging and running tests
  because it produces the final package to be delivered to end-users. This
  automated production usually runs unattendedly reporting results from
  processing the current source code base. The configuration of this tool can
  be taken as the source for all the others.

  Ant is the most favourite build tool for projects written in the Java
  language. Eclipse with JDT is a state-of-the-art IDE for Java developers.
  Unfortunately, Eclipse cannot use Ant build scripts to base configuration
  of its projects on them. Ant can be run from the Eclipse IDE but the
  configuration is kept separately.

  Ant-Eclipse automates the task of creating an Eclipse project making the
  developer to write an automated build script as the first thing and to
  generate an Eclipse project from it whenever it changes. It keeps the
  Eclipse project always up-to-date with the last changes in the build script.
  This project refreshing is usually automated when more developers are
  working on a software project. They have to synchronize regularly their
  workspace with a central source code repository to integrate changes made
  by the others. This usually involves:

  * Synchronizing the source code with a central repository.
  * Updating the binary dependencies (libraries) from a central depot.
  * Generating resources (files) dependent on the environment (time and place
    where it runs) like build numbers, package manifests and so on.

  The regeneration of Eclipse projects fits exactly to the last phase of such
  sychronizing process. This is the recommended usage of the Ant-Eclipse task.

  A formerly existing Eclipse project will be overwritten if a new one is to
  be generated. Files for an Eclipse project are not generated if they exist
  and they are not older than the Ant build script (the Ant build script has
  not been changed). This update can be forced, however.

  The Latest Version
  ------------------

  Details of the latest version can be found on the Ant-Eclipse Project web
  site http://ant-eclipse.sourceforge.net.

  Documentation
  -------------

  Documentation is available in HTML format, in the file
  manual/ant-eclipse.html.

  Licensing
  ---------

  This software is licensed under the terms you may find in the file named
  "LICENSE" in this directory.

  Thanks for using Ant-Eclipse.

                                                  Ferdinand Prantl
                                           [email protected]
                                        http://ant-eclipse.sourceforge.net