onerror parameter in ant <taskdef>/<typedef> in antlib descriptor.

Question

I am creating an antlib with custom tasks to be used in our build system.

I have looked at antcontrib antlib declaration and noticed that the typedefs/taskdefs have onerror parameter set to ignore, e.g.

<taskdef
    name="for"
    classname="net.sf.antcontrib.logic.ForTask"
    onerror="ignore"/>

The default value of the onerror parameter is fail.

I have 2 questions:

• Why ant-contrib authors use ignore?
• Should I use ignore in my antlib declaration, or fail is just fine?

Answer 1

In our project we (among many other things) run our unittests through ant. If the task stopped on error, we would only be able to solve errors in our unittests sequentially one build after another. Letting the process finish even with errors gives us an overview of all the errors that arose in our test suites.