Question

I want to use one of Ant’s task (scp) from inside my code. Is there any way to do it?

Should I simply reference one of Ant’s library and call the API directly from my code?

Answer 1

Yes, you can invoke Ant tasks quite easily from your code.

Here’s an example of how to extend an Ant Task:

import org.apache.tools.ant.Project;
import org.apache.tools.ant.Target;
import org.apache.tools.ant.taskdefs.Copy;

public class MyCopyTask extends Copy {
    public MyCopyTask() {
        setProject(new Project());
        getProject().init();
        setTaskName("MyCopy");
        setTaskType("MyCopy");
        setOwningTarget(new Target());
    }
}

Here’s how to use it in your code:

MyCopyTask copier = new MyCopyTask();
copier.setFile(srcFile);
copier.setTofile(toFile);
copier.execute();

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Here’s some more info:

• http://ant.apache.org/manual/antexternal.html