Re: [stellation-res] Question about the new scripts

[Dave Shields <shields@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Dec 04, 2002 at 01:09:05PM -0500, Mark C. Chu-Carroll wrote:
> 
> I'm trying to test my latest changes using the new build/install/test
> in core, and having a lot of trouble. One thing that I've noticed is
> that the new build switched from the old, trivial 2-line script for
> running svc, to an extremely complicated 168 line shell script derived
> from the ant runner.  This is a dramatic increase in the complexity of
> the runner, but I'm not aware of any problems that we had with the old
> runner that justify this.
> 
> I'm currently trying to track down a seeming classpath related bug,
> and dealing with the indirection in the new build and how it's
> interacting with this complicated shellscript is giving me a headache.
> What problem is this new runner script addressing?
> 
> 	-Mark
> 

The new executables are (on Unix) all links to new script svc.sh, which is
based (heavily) on the wrapper script used by Ant (as noted near the top 
of those 168 lines). If you take a look you will see that svc.sh provides the 
following features not supported by old script:

-- support for Cygwin
-- support for Darwin on Apple
-- untangling symbolic links on path
-- attempt to guess STELLATION_HOME if not defined
-- sorting out JAVA_HOME, including oddity for IBM AIX
-- adding *all* the jar files in STELLATION_LIB to the classpath, so that
   for example, we just need to copy junit.jar into the library, and not
   have to include explicit list of jars in the script. This also means
   user can have whatever version of Xerces is desired, though different
   versions have different jar names (as noted in recent thread).
-- putting all needed function in a single script; for example, svc, svcadmin
   and svcserver differ only in which class serves as the main program, and in
   parameters are passed to JVM.
-- use of 'dist' and 'build' directories to distinguish between release and
   trial versions of the system.

Though not yet in the tree, there is a script ant.bat used for Windows that
we can adapt to provide Windows support. Indeed, this was one of the main
reasons to use the new wrapper form.

dave

-- 
Dave Shields, IBM Research, shields@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.