Adding a new target to the Ant build process

Use the Ant conductor extension point (dita.conductor.target.relative) to make new targets available to the Ant processing pipeline. This can be done as part of creating a new transformation, extending pre-processing, or simply to make new Ant targets available to other plug-ins.

Procedure

  1. Create an Ant project file that contains the new target.
  2. In the same directory as the Ant project file, create a wrapper file that imports the Ant project file:
    <dummy>
      <import file="Ant-file"/>
    </dummy>
    where Ant-file is the project file that contains the new target.
  3. Create the plugin.xml file:
    <plugin id="plugin-id">
      <feature extension="dita.conductor.target.relative" file="wrapper-file"/>
    </plugin>
    where:
    • plugin-id is the plug-in identifier, for example, com.example.ant.
    • wrapper-file is the wrapper file that imports the Ant project file.
  4. Install the plug-in.

Results

The imports from wrapper file are copied into the build.xml file, using the correct path. This makes the new Ant targets available to other processes.