Re: [PATCH]: Add Ant.

[Ricardo Wurmus <ricardo.wurmus@mdc-berlin.de>]

>> * to use Ant without problems ANT_HOME and JAVA_HOME really should be
>>   set appropriately (ANT_HOME to $out of the ant-minimal package,
>>   JAVA_HOME to $out of icedtea6).  Should I suggest these two paths as
>>   search paths by adding something like this to ant-minimal (for
>>   ANT_HOME) and icedtea6 (for JAVA_HOME)?
>>
>>     (native-search-paths
>>      (list (search-path-specification
>>             (variable "ANT_HOME")
>>             (files '(".")))))
>
> Since Ant is generally used via the ‘ant’ command (AIUI), what about
> wrapping that command so that ANT_HOME and JAVA_HOME are set
> appropriately?

According to the docs[1],

    "ANT_HOME is used by the launcher script for finding the
     libraries. JAVA_HOME is used by the launcher for finding the
     JDK/JRE to use."

So, it would indeed make sense to modify the "launcher script"
(whichever this is, probably "ant") to set ANT_HOME before continuing.
I'm not a Java person, though, so I don't know if this is considered
bad.

JAVA_HOME, however, probably should not be set.  After all, Ant works
with different JDK/JRE versions, not only IcedTea 6.

I even wonder if we should make icedtea6 a build-time input only to
compile the libraries, so that one would not need to have icedtea6
installed at all.  Or should there be multiple variants of Java packages
akin to what we do with Python modules?  I must admit that I find this
rather confusing.  How closely do we have to tie Java applications /
libraries to a particular version of the JDK?  Are there any insights
you could share about how it's done in Nix?

~~ Ricardo

[1]: http://ant.apache.org/manual/index.html