How to debug ant source inside RAD / Eclipse

[WebServices Development <We...@csx.com>]

Is there a way to debug ANT source by using it to build inside Rational Application Developer ( RAD ) or Eclipse?

I have downloaded the ANT 1.8.4 source and did a build in RAD using the build.xml which created the ant jar files.  I then tried to create a launcher using these built jar files, but I am unable to put a breakpoint in them.  Ami missing something or am I going about it the wrong way?

Is there a way to run an ANT build in RAD using these ANT jar files and set a break-point?

Thank you.





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Re: How to debug ant source inside RAD / Eclipse

[Antoine Levy Lambert <an...@gmx.de>]

If you want to debug the source code of Ant or of custom Ant tasks that you develop and you are using Eclipse or RAD. here is what you can do.

Ant can be started as an "External Tool". In the External Tools Conifgurations dialog box, you can create an "Ant Build" build configuration, selecting the build file that you want to run and the target. 

In order to be able to debug the source code of Ant or of your custom tasks, you want to open the JRE tab and enter VM arguments, for instance these :  -Xdebug -agentlib:jdwp=transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=y,address=8000

The suspend=y option in the VM arguments means that the Ant VM will wait on you starting debugging to run.

You then create in the menu Run/Debug a debug configuration using the same port 8000. See for instance this link [1]  or [2] concerning remote debugging. You will want to create an Eclipse project "Ant" inside Eclipse and put this project on the class path of your debug configuration so that you can put breakpoints inside the code of Ant and actually hit these breakpoints.

Once you have setup both your external tool configuration and the remote java debug configuration, you need to first kick off the external tool configuration. Because of "suspend=y" it is going to hang for a short time until you activate the "remote" debugging configuration. Once the remote debugging configuration is started and you see the message saying something like VM connected on port 8000 you will be able to debug the code of Ant.

Eclipse can also debug Ant build files since Eclipse 3.1 according to this document [3].  Which links also to this one [4] titled "Make Ant easy with Eclipse"


Regards,

Antoine

[1] http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/os-eclipse-javadebug/index.html
[2] http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-to-setup-remote-debugging-in.html
[3] http://www.eclipsezone.com/eclipse/forums/t71656.html
[4] http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/tutorials/os-ecl-easyant/


On Jan 20, 2013, at 6:29 PM, WebServices Development wrote:

> Is there a way to debug ANT source by using it to build inside Rational Application Developer ( RAD ) or Eclipse?
> 
> I have downloaded the ANT 1.8.4 source and did a build in RAD using the build.xml which created the ant jar files.  I then tried to create a launcher using these built jar files, but I am unable to put a breakpoint in them.  Ami missing something or am I going about it the wrong way?
> 
> Is there a way to run an ANT build in RAD using these ANT jar files and set a break-point?
> 
> Thank you.
> 
>