Basic usage of Rivulet java conversion ant task

This page dessribes the simplest way to use Rivulet. You will need a body of java source code, which will be converted into an XML syntax. This usage scenario is not directly useful, but it will give you a chance to look at the output.

Set up your directory structure

Put your java source code in a suitable directory such as src/java. Make a directory for the output XML such as converted/java.xml

Make a build file

Make a file called build.xml. Here is a skeletal build file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<project name="RivuletUsage" default="basic">
    <!-- target called 'basic' needed -->
</project>
        

Next you need to define the ant task, giving a reference to the rivulet jar. Download the jar and put it in a directory called lib.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<project name="RivuletUsage" default="basic">
    <taskdef name="rivulet" classname="net.sourceforge.rivulet.javaconvert.ant.JavaConverterTask"
        classpath="lib/rivulet-javaconvert-0.1.jar" />
    <!-- target called 'basic' needed -->
</project>
        

Finally you need to create a target that makes use of the task

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<project name="RivuletUsage" default="basic">
    <taskdef name="rivulet" classname="net.sourceforge.rivulet.javaconvert.ant.JavaConverterTask"
        classpath="lib/rivulet-javaconvert-0.1.jar" />
    <target name="basic">
        <rivulet dest="converted/java.xml" action="java-to-xml">
            <fileset dir="src/java" includes="*.java"/>
        </rivulet>
    </target>
</project>
        

Use the build file

Open a shell in the same diretory as build.xml. If you have ant in your path you can just run ant as follows:

$ ant
Buildfile: build.xml

basic:
  [rivulet] Converting 1 files

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 2 seconds
$
        

Investigate the output

Look at the files in your output directory. They should all have the extension .java.xml. Open them with your favourite XML editor. Internet Explorer also does a reasonable job of deplaying XML.

Next steps

You can try running the reverse process by creating a new target in your build file and specifying xml-to-java as the value of the action attribute. Currently comments are lost and white space is normalised during the conversion process, but the output should be functionally identical to the java source code that you used as input.