Java Extreme Programming Cookbook

Creating an XDoclet xdoclet.xml File

Problem

You need to create a new XDoclet xdoclet.xml file for a custom code generator.

Solution

Mark up your sub tasks with @ant.element tags and your tag handler classes with @xdoclet.taghandler tags. Add an Ant target to your buildfile that executes XDoclet’s template subtask with XDoclet’s xdoclet-xml.xdt template file.

Discussion

XDoclet 1.2 code generators require a deployment descriptor named xdoclet.xml. This file defines the namespace for an XDoclet tag handler class used in a template file, and defines the subtasks that are valid for a single XDoclet task. The file must exist in the meta-inf directory of your code generator’s JAR file. The JAR file is known as an XDoclet module. Modules are discussed in more detail in the next recipe.

Example 9-14 shows how to mark up an XDoclet subtask. The only tag needed is an @ant.element tag. This tag defines two mandatory attributes: name and parent. The name attribute specifies the subtask name to use in the Ant buildfile. The parent attribute specifies the Ant XDoclet task that is allowed to execute the subtask. Remember that we do not need a subclass of xdoclet.DocletTask; therefore, we use DocletTask as the parent.

Example 9-14. Marked-up XDoclet subtask

/**
 * @ant.element
 *     name="junitperf"
 *     parent="xdoclet.DocletTask"
 *
 * @author Brian M. Coyner
 */

Example 9-15 shows how to mark up an XDoclet tag handler class. The only tag needed is an @xdoclet.taghandler tag with the mandatory attribute namespace ...