Run NetBeans project just with ant

Question

I have a sample code that was built with Netbeans.

It has a build.xml file so I downloaded ant and try to run it.

I've got this error message:

...... nbproject\build-impl.xml:76: Platform is not correctly set up

For what I can see, this is fixed by "simply" downloading Netbeans and running the sample from there, but... I don't want to install it to run a 10 files sample.

Is there a workaround to run Netbeans projects with Java? What's the correct .properties file I have to modify?

Thanks.

Answer 1

It is possible to run the NetBeans generated projects straight from Java/ANT, but you may need to manually set some of the properties and/or add paths to jar files.

Unfortunately, NetBeans tends to include taskdef's using their own JAR files and reference properties that are defined only in the /nbproject/private/private.properties files, which usually get set when you first open the NetBeans project or modified as you edit the project in the IDE.

If you inspect the build-impl.xml you should be able to find the property and derive what value needs to be set(OS platform), then either:

• create/set the property in the /nbproject/private.properties
• add that property definition in the parent build.xml
• pass in the commandline when invoking your ant target using -DPlatform=Foo

Personally, I like the structure of the NetBeans generated ANT files and targets, but hate how much custom/proprietary stuff they jam in that makes it hard to run without NetBeans.

Answer 2

Just to add to Mads' answer... usually, you need to install and open Netbeans at least once on the target machine. The ANT projects also rely on a few settings from the USERDIR/.netbeans/... directory. This may have changed with 6.5+.

This will get some of the base settings configured and define the classpath's to netbeans jars. If your dependencies (i.e. libraries) or project is being run from a different directory since the last time you opened the project in Netbeans, you will need to tweak a few settings in the private.properties file as Mads' described.

Answer 3

I've just successfully built NetBeans project with ant. These were the things I had to do:

• Copy <NetBeans-folder>/java2/ant to a "Netbeanless" machine
• Copy nbproject/project.properties to, say, ant.properties
• Replace every ${} expression in ant.properties with it's value
• Add platform.<platform-name>.home=<path to platform>
• Add libs.CopyLibs.classpath=<path to nb-ant>/extra/org-netbeans-modules-java-j2seproject-copylibtask.jar
• Add other needed classpaths into javac.classpath (e.g. path to servlet-api.jar)
• ant -propertyfile ant.properties

It works, but doesn't make me happy. I would either like to find the way to reuse project.properties, or to automatically translate it to a "resolved" version (step 3). Build could then be automated.

Answer 4

I'm using Netbeans 6.8 and java projects that were created with Netbeans can be run from the Netbeans auto generated build files with just ant on the cli. All the regular targets like ant compile,ant run,ant clean, etc "just work". (I'm using Fedora 13 if that matters)