I would like to propose that Ant should be enhanced with webdav features. In a first step, it might be nice to have all ftp-like features available. Ultimately, of course, one might also think about including DeltaV and/or DASL support. Since a stable Java Webdav Client API is already available as part of the Slide project, it might not be all too complex to add webdav support to ant. What do you think?
I agree, webdav would transform deployment, and work well with Subversion. Feel free to write it :) It might be better to add the tasks to slide though, that being the bit of code it would have a tightest coupling to. Note that MacOS X, linux and WinXP all support DAV filesystems; once you mount a remote drive you can use <copy> to deploy. But a portable solution is preferable,
>>Note that MacOS X, linux and WinXP all support DAV filesystems; >>once you mount a remote drive you can use <copy> to deploy WOOOW! I knew that I can create web folders within the windows file explorer, but can you tell me how I can address a webfolder from within the <copy> task? A Windows webfolder doesn't seem to have a driveletter and I don't knwo how to create a network drive mapping on a webfolder. By the way: I was just eager to know whether a webdav support was already planned and whether you guys appreciate the idea. I would so much like to help coding things for so many opensource projects, including ant if I only found the time. I would like to add webdav features to ant, but anything that I would craft or anything that might be coded within slide could then only be added to ant via task-defs, right? Or would you then take the slide-webdav tasks into your optional package?
There was, and may still be, Ant tasks within the Slide codebase. Have a look deep there to find them. I agree that WebDAV would be a nice addition, and some work has already been done for a virtual filesystem layer which would encapsulate WebDAV too. As for mapping a network drive to use <copy>: you can use WebDrive on Windows to do this, but not out of the box Windows, that I know of.
erik says > you can use WebDrive on Windows to do this, but not out of the box Windows, that I know of. steve says: erik, not read all of ch18, "Deployment", in Hatcher and Loughran yet? http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/appendix/hh/appendix/enhancements5_33oz.asp net use http://www.msnusers.com/fooname/files /u:yourpassportaccount@hotmail.com note that I have not tested this yet. which I should do, dangerous to take the MS word for anything, n'est-quoi. NB, dont worry about taskdef importing of slide tasks in a slide.jar; you can bulk import a set of tasks from a single jar with taskdef, so it would only be a oneliner to pull in a suite of webdav support. And we will point to the tasks from the ant pages.
support is provided by slide and/or commons-vfs (Jakarta Commons). Since Ant wouldn't implement WebDAV itself but use Slide, the tasks are best kept with Slide IMHO.