Axis C++ ANT Build Guide

This document provides instructions for using and extending the ANT based build for the AXIS C++ project.

Preparing system
Getting necessary third party software
Getting a CVS checkout
Property Files
Running the ANT build
Adding an extra platform

Preparing system

To use the ANT based build you will need to install the following:

Apache ANT
- Available from http://ant.apache.org
- These scripts have been developed and tested using version 1.6.x
Java SDK - required for running of ANT scripts, and the compilation of WSDL2Ws tool
- Require version 1.4+
Ant-Contrib - provide numerous extensions to ANT, including the compilation of C/C++.
- Available from http://ant-contrib.sourceforge.net
- Place JARs into [ANT INSTALL DIR]/lib.
- Require both ant-contrib and cpptasks
Doxygen - Used for generating API documentation
- Available from http://www.doxygen.org
Compiler / Linker
- For Windows - Microsoft Visual C++ v6
- For Linux - gcc / g++
- For AIX - IBM Visual Age for C++

Before running ANT the following environment variables need to be set:

ANT_HOME - location of ant installation
JAVA_HOME - location of java installation
PATH - to include [ANT_HOME]/bin and [JAVA_HOME]/bin.
- Also ensure doxygen and compilers are available on the system path.

Getting necessary third party software

Axis Cpp Developers can use either Xerces-c or the Expat XML Parsers to build the Axis Cpp.

Expat XML Parser

You can get expat binaries from http://sourceforge.net/projects/expat/.

Xerces-C XML Parser

You can get Xerces-C binaries from http://xerces.apache.org.

Getting a cvs checkout

Visit http://ws.apache.org/ Click on “axis” and then on “CVS Repository” to find details on how to access the CVS Repository.
In short summary:
Anyone can checkout the source code from our anonymous CVS server. To do so, simply use the following commands (if you are using a GUI CVS client, configure it appropriately):

cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.apache.org:/home/cvspublic login password: anoncvs cvs -d :pserver:anoncvs@cvs.apache.org:/home/cvspublic checkout ws-axis

The checkout of the repository will be created in the current directory in a folder named “ws-axis”

The checked out folder ws-axis will be referred to as [CHECKOUT_HOME] from this point on.

Property Files

To aid in the portability of the ANT scripts, a number of property files are used. The script will decide which to use based on the platform in which it is currently running. The property files are found in ws-axis/c with the following naming convention:

build.[platform].properties

A number of example property files are provided for Windows, Linux, AIX and Solaris, tt is intended that you update these files to suit your development and buid environment. This includes location of third party software dependencies and target packaging structure.

Running the ANT build

Having carried out the instructions above, the running of the ant build is simply a matter of typing the following at a command prompt:

ant

This will carry out the following:

Build Axis C Client library
Build Axis C Transport library
Build Axis C XML Parser library
- Expat, Xerces-C, etc configurable through the property files
Build and package WSDL2Ws tool
Generate API Documentation
Package artefacts into a distributable structure
- This structure is configurable through the property files
Validate all artefacts have been correctly generated

To remove artefacts from a previous build use the following command:

ant clean

Adding an extra platform

The AXIS community would greatly appreciate your input, if you're working on a platform not currently supported by the ANT scripts.
Below, are the steps required to add an additional platform;

Add platform detection to pre-init target, eg:

<condition property="linux">
  <os name="Linux"/>
</condition>

Update platform property within initialize target, eg:

<condition property="platform" value="Linux">
  <isset property="linux"/>
</condition>

Provide an additional property file in ws-axis/c to match your platform. This uses the naming convention build.[platform].properties, where platform is as specified in step 2.

Provide compiler definition for platform, include a condition check for the correct platform, eg:

<compiler id="Linuxgcc" name="g++" if="linux">
  <compilerarg value="-Wall"/>
  <compilerarg value="-Wshadow"/>
  <compilerarg value="-g"/>
  <compilerarg value="-O2"/>
  <defineset>
    <define name="ENABLE_AXIS_EXCEPTION"/>
    <define name="HAVE_CONFIG_H"/>
    <define name="PIC"/>
  </defineset>
  <includepath path="${dir.include}"/>
</compiler>

Note: Compilers may extend one another, which can be useful if an additional platform uses the same compiler, but maybe only small variations in the parameters.

Provide linker definition for platform, include a condition check for the correct platform, eg:
```
<linker id="LinuxLinker" name="g++" libtool="true" if="linux">
  <linkerarg value="-g"/>
  <libset libs="stdc++"/>
</linker>
```
Note: As for compilers, linkers may extend one another.

Add new compiler and linker to the cc task within compileAxisClient, compileAxisTransport and compileAxisXMLParser targets, eg:

<cc outfile="${dir.bin}/${transportLibraryName}" objdir="${dir.objects}"
 exceptions="true" failonerror="false" outtype="shared" multithreaded="true">
  <!-- Compilers -->
  <compiler refid="Linuxgcc"/>
  <compiler refid="AIXxlc"/>
  <compiler extends="VisualC++">
    <defineset>
      <define name="AXISTRANSPORTDLL_EXPORTS"/>
    </defineset>
  </compiler>
  <!-- Linkers -->
  <linker refid="LinuxLinker"/>
  <linker refid="AIXLinker"/>
  <linker extends="VisualC++Linker">
    <syslibset libs="wsock32"/>
  </linker>
  <!-- Files to compile -->
  <fileset dir="${dir.src}">
    <include name="transport/axis/*.cpp"/>
    <!-- The following files need to be excluded -->
    <exclude name="transport/axis/SecureChannel.cpp"/>
  </fileset>
</cc>