AntActionInstallerListener and AntActionUninstallerListener

IzPack provides support to execute Ant tasks during installation and uninstallation.

For example:

<resources>
    ...
    <res id="AntActionsSpec.xml" src="myInstallSpecs/MyAntActionsSpec.xml" />
    ...
</resources>

<jar src="jar/ant.jar" stage="both"/>
<jar src="jar/customtasks.jar" stage="both"/>

<listeners>
    <listener classname="AntActionInstallerListener" stage="install" />
    <listener classname="AntActionUninstallerListener" stage="uninstall" />
</listeners>

In the above:

• the AntActionsSpec.xml resource determines the Ant tasks to be executed. The base path of src is the installation project path.
• the <jar/> element specifies jar dependencies required to execute the Ant tasks. At a minimum, this must include the Ant jar.
• the <listeners> element is used to hook execution of the Ant tasks into the installer and uninstaller

Nor that an "extended" ant use needs more than one jar, for example often xercesImpl.jar. If an obscure "class not found" exception is raised during testing, check first for missing jar files.

The stage attribute of the jar element determines when a jar is required. If an ant uninstaller custom action is used, the uninstaller also needs the jar files. If stage is "both" or "uninstall", the contents of the referenced jar file will be packed into the uninstaller.

Note that not the jar file itself, but the contents of it are required. This implies, that the paths of the contained files are unique and the information in meta-inf/Manifest.mf will be lost.

The AntActionSpec XML Struture

An ant action is defined in the resource with the id "AntActionsSpec.xml". In IzPack 5.0 (as of 5.0.0-beta-11), an XML-Schema is provided, which may be declared as follows:

<izpack:antactions version="5.0"
                   xmlns:izpack="http://izpack.org/schema/antactions"
                   xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
                   xsi:schemaLocation="http://izpack.org/schema/antactions http://izpack.org/schema/5.0/izpack-antactions-5.0.xsd">
<!-- .... -->
</izpack:antactions>

Prior to processing the packs a substitution is performed using all defined IzPack variables on the spec file. This is a common way of loading spec files into custom actions.

For more information see method com.izforge.izpack.util.SpecHelper.readSpec. If you want to substitute a value in the file, simply add a variable via installData.setVariable in a custom panel before InstallPanel. The given variable name (id) should be written into the xml file in the common variable notation.

The following outlines the sections available in the AntActionsSpec.xml:

antactions

The top level XML section is called <antactions>. The antactions element may contain zero or more pack elements described below:

pack

The pack element is used to tie the action(s) to be performed to the packs selected in the installation. The pack element may have the following attribute:

The pack element must contain 1 or more antcall elements.

antcall

The antcall element has the following attributes:

In addition to the possible attributes there are some elements may be defined within an antcall element. All elements can be defined zero or more times in an <antcall>. Although all elements are optional, no ANT tasks will be performed unless a <target> element is specified. Do not confuse the following: "required"s are related to the attributes of the elements, not to the elements themselfs.

property

Defines a property to be used with all targets and uninstall_targets which are defined for this antcall.  The following attributes may be defined:

propertyfile

Defines properties to be used, read from a property file which are defined for this antcall.  The following attributes may be defined:

One way to fill specific data into it is to create a new file in a custom panel and fill it with values given by input fields. The file path can be set at installation time, if there is a variable in AntActionSpec.xml and an IzPack variable was defined before InstallPanel. That file can be only created with deleteOnExit, if no <uninstall_target> was defined in this <antcall>. This implies, that other <antcall>}}s can have a {{<uninstall_target>. <target>: target to call at installation h3. Targets to perform with this antcall at installation time. The targets should be defined in the given buildfile or else an ant exception will be raised. This is that what you use, if you don't want to perform the default target. e.g. cleaning the IzPack project with ant clean.

target

The target to execute in the ANT build file during action specified in the order attribute of the antcall (install time).  Note: Multiple targets to execute for the action may be specified by using multiple target elements.  The following attribute must be defined:

uninstall_target

Targets to perform with this antcall at uninstallation time. Note: Multiple targets to execute for the action may be specified by using multiple target elements.