I'd really like it if I could use my version of ant (1.4.1), rather than the unknown one that the build scripts assign to me. Ideally, I'd like to just type "ant<cr><lf>" and have everything work. In the real world, I'd like to be able to edit "build.properties" and then type "ant<cr><lf>" and have everything work. In the poi world, none of these are possible.
The fact is that POI with 1.4.1 doesn't build ;-) Poi is using Centipede, that uses currently the latest DEV version on Ant 1.5. We have given Ant the xml task we use, and it will be in Ant 1.5. We don't use build.properties, but the xml configuration files instead. The fact is that Poi's Ant is "unknown" to you, while your Ant is "unknown" to Poi's build ;-)
For a Jakarta project that depends on another Jakarta project to not work with the current release version is truly bizarre. Please provide a Jakarta-compatible way to build your project.
" For a Jakarta project that depends on another Jakarta project to not work with the current release version is truly bizarre. " No. It happens all the time. Currently Apache Cocoon uses Batik 1.5dev, and constantly uses scratchpad versions on Avalon. POI is not released yet, so using fixed versions of other Jakarta projects is not mandatory in _any_ way. As for a " Jakarta-compatible way" for the build, there is *no mandatory* Jakarta way of doing builds. Even Ant itself is not compulsory at Jakarta, only recommended. If you have some serious reason why you need to build POI with 1.4.1 please let us know, just because others do it in another way is not enough. If you don't want to use our build system, you can always put the source files in a directory and compile them there with javac, or make a minimal build file. If you send it to us, I will put it in the contributed section.
This seems pedantic to me. Everything necessary to build comes with POI. Just because it doesn't build with the version of ant you like, well sorry. It also doesn't build very nicely with gnu make. I can understand if you were deploying the build on a production server and were concerned with it, but this seems like you're just looking for an issue. If you don't contribute to improving the build, then you just have to live with it. Sorry.