build API with ant

Hello,

right now im trying out a new tutorial on Jfreechart, but i cant get one step correctly that involves the usage of ant. I will quote the tutorial just to make my problem more clear.

2. From the ant subdirectory of the just-unpacked JCommon, run ant javadoc to generate
the Javadocs locally. If you are unfamiliar with Ant, you can skip this step, but
then NetBeans won’t be able to show you the Javadoc popups for JCommon.

My problem is that i dont know how to "run ant javadoc". Does i that mean i have to start an exe via run OR start the ant exe manually and type something? Can someone give me a more descriptive explanation?

Yes im using Netbeans 6.8!

The text would have been more helpful if it said "...run the Ant <javadoc> task...". http://ant.apache.org/manual/CoreTasks/javadoc.html

Or maybe they meant run "ant javadoc". That is, pass the "javadoc" target to Ant. Given NetBeans, which generates a fairly sophisticated build.xml for your project, I think this is probably what they meant.

Peter Johnson wrote:The text would have been more helpful if it said "...run the Ant <javadoc> task...". http://ant.apache.org/manual/CoreTasks/javadoc.html

Or maybe they meant run "ant javadoc". That is, pass the "javadoc" target to Ant. Given NetBeans, which generates a fairly sophisticated build.xml for your project, I think this is probably what they meant.

thanks for your reply!

But one more thing, which EXE or whatever file i am supposed to pass that argument in ?? i dont know what the hell ant is, ok its something for deployment and it uses xml-files as format-specifier to create the javadoc. But nothing else.

1.) how do i start ant?
2.) is ant started within the javac-command? none of the tutorials explaining that!
3.) do i have to download ant first ? which download is correct ? this one ??? link: http://ant.apache.org/bindownload.cgi
4.) where do i pass the argument in?
5.) how do i tell ant which xml-file to map with which jar??

Frank,
The installing Ant page covers a lot of this.

Basically, if you are using an IDE, you likely already have Ant. If not, you'll need to install it so you can run it at the command line.

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:Frank,
The installing Ant page covers a lot of this.

Basically, if you are using an IDE, you likely already have Ant. If not, you'll need to install it so you can run it at the command line.

Ok then tell me how to start ant from Netbeans 6.8! please!

i dont know what the hell ant is, ok its something for deployment and it uses xml-files as format-specifier to create the javadoc. But nothing else.

Searching the web for "ant" might be a good place to start, and no, it doesn't use xml files as a format specifier to create Javadocs.

David Newton wrote:

i dont know what the hell ant is, ok its something for deployment and it uses xml-files as format-specifier to create the javadoc. But nothing else.

Searching the web for "ant" might be a good place to start, and no, it doesn't use xml files as a format specifier to create Javadocs.

seems like this "ant thing" is quite acomplex issue, although i just wanted to generate some javadoc. ridiculous!

thanks for the useless tip David Newton! im searching since 3 hours and theres no tutorial on that.

It's not ridiculous at all. You don't *have* to use Ant to generate Javadocs--you're *choosing* to. And using Ant to generate Javadocs is very straightforward, and there are examples in the Ant manual: http://ant.apache.org/manual/CoreTasks/javadoc.html. Running Ant is similarly straight-forward: http://ant.apache.org/manual/running.html#commandline

David Newton wrote:It's not ridiculous at all. You don't *have* to use Ant to generate Javadocs--you're *choosing* to. And using Ant to generate Javadocs is very straightforward, and there are examples in the Ant manual: http://ant.apache.org/manual/CoreTasks/javadoc.html. Running Ant is similarly straight-forward: http://ant.apache.org/manual/running.html#commandline

Fortunately i found the javadocs in HTML form, so i dont need to learn this ant-command-line stuff right now!
Anyways, good evening...

EDIT:

Halleluja, the html docs work with netbeans library add.