Ant's global property WEBLOGIC_HOME in eclipse

Question

Ant in Eclipse has the global property WEBLOGIC_HOME but while it gives a correct tooltip in the editor it doesn't work in a build script, e.g.

<taskdef name="wsdlc" classname="weblogic.wsee.tools.anttasks.WsdlcTask" classpath="${WEBLOGIC_HOME}\server\lib\weblogic.jar" />

gives: build failed: wsdlctask cannot be found.

When I replace ${WEBLOGIC_HOME} with C:\bea\wlserver_10.3 or define my own global property there is no problem.

So nothing to worry about, but I was wondering, why does such a strange behaviour exist?

Answer 1

If you look at your workspace preferences in Ant > Runtime > Properties, I guess that you'll find out a WEBLOGIC_HOME property. This property is automatically added by the Weblogic plugin for Eclipse using the configuration defined in Server > Runtime Environments.

Not sure it's a good thing. First, I don't like when things happen in my back without being notified. Then, it make the build.xml not portable outside Eclipse. To avoid that, define your own property if necessary.