Ant build failed: Reference application not found

[Leandro Coutinho]

Hi. I'm following this tutorial: http://ant.apache.org/manual/tutorial-HelloWorldWithAnt.html

The problem I get when integrating with JUnit.

...<target name="run" depends="jar"> <java classname="${main-class}" fork="true"> <classpath> <path refid="classpath" /> <path id="application" location="${jar-file}"/> </classpath> </java> </target> <target name="junit" depends="jar"> <junit printsummary="yes"> <classpath> <path refid="classpath"/> <path refid="application"/> </classpath> <batchtest fork="yes"> <fileset dir="${src.dir}" includes="*Test.java"/> </batchtest> </junit> </target>...
ant works, but ant junit doesn't work.
The test class:

public class HelloWorldTest extends junit.framework.TestCase {

    public void testNothing() {}
    
    public void testWillAlwaysFail() {
        fail("An error message");
    }
}

Could you help me? Thank you!

[Leandro Coutinho]

I saw an example here: http://www.roseindia.net/tutorials/ant/ant-and-junit.shtml
Then was able to fix this problem.
I created:
<path id="classpath-test"> <path refid="classpath" /> <pathelement location="${src.dir}" /> </path> ... <target name="junit" depends="jar"> <junit printsummary="yes"> <classpath refid="classpath-test" /> <!-- <classpath> <path refid="classpath"/> <path refid="application"/> </classpath> --> <batchtest fork="yes"> <fileset dir="${src.dir}" includes="*Test.java"/> </batchtest> </junit> </target>

[Roland Young]

I'm posting this reply because this topic was the top hit in my Google search. I have found what may be a better solution.

The problem seems to be that the refid at line 14 in your original example references a definition (at line 05) that is nested inside another target (the run target).
It seems reasonable that Ant won't look for the definition in that scope.

My solution was to move the definition to the project scope (as a peer of the path definition that does work) and replace the original definition with a reference:
<path id="classpath"> <fileset dir="${lib.dir}" includes="**/*.jar"/> </path> <path id="application" location="${jar.dir}/${ant.project.name}.jar"/> <!-- added --> ... <target name="run" depends="jar"> <java fork="true" classname="${main-class}"> <classpath> <path refid="classpath"/> <path refid="application"/> <!-- changed to reference --> </classpath> </java> </target> <target name="junit" depends="jar"> <junit printsummary="yes"> <classpath> <path refid="classpath"/> <path refid="application"/> <!-- now this works --> ...

I hope this may help someone else who runs into the same issue.