war task gives warnings

[Mark Binau]

Hi,
My build.xml contains the following war task.
<war warfile="${basedir}/webproj.war"
webxml="${webInfDir}web.xml"
basedir="${webAppDir}"
manifest="${webAppDir}${file.separator}META-INF${file.separator}MANIFEST.MF"
/>
When it runs, I get the following warnings:
Warning: selected war files include a META-INF/MANIFEST.MF which will be ignored (please use manifest attribute to war task)
Warning: selected war files include a WEB-INF/web.xml which will be ignored (please use webxml attribute to war task)
I am using both the webxml and manifest attributes. Can anyone explain these warnings? What do they really mean? Should I be doing it differently?
Thanks,
Mark

[Tony Yan]

I think the warfile attribute is old and that's why Ant thinks you have web.xml and manifest not in attribute (they are in your existing war file).
From Ant manual:
"warfile" Deprecated name of the file to create, use destfile instead.

[Rene Larsen]

You are getting this error because 'manifest.mf' and 'web.xml' are already included in '${webAppDir}'
Try to exclude both files e.g. change your '<war' target like this:

<war warfile="${basedir}/webproj.war" 
     webxml="${webInfDir}web.xml"
     manifest="${webAppDir}/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF">
  <fileset dir="${webAppDir}" excludes="**/web.xml, **/MANIFEST.MF" />
</war>

Ren�
[ March 10, 2004: Message edited by: Rene Larsen ]

[Mark Binau]

Thanks Rene. That got it to work without the warning.

[Lee Ball]

just for anyone that Googles this and still can't fix it - it's important to do

<exclude name="**/web.xml"/>

rather than

<exclude name="${warclasses}/WEB-INF/web.xml"/>

Cheers

[Tim Holloway]

Actually, that's a pet peeve. Since I keep the invariant parts of my webapp in a mirror-image of the final WAR, my web.xml WILL be in the WAR input and I'll get that message. I wish they'd give me an "I know, shut up!" option.

I tried an out-of-line web.xml and didn't like it. Although if I were using xdoclet to generate one on the fly, that would be different.

[Aruneesh Salhotra]

Nice I was having this warning for sometime, and this is a good fix.

[JP Kay]

This is why I still love the java community. I googled this problem and found the perfect solution thanks to you guys.

Thanks so much everyone!

[Frank Carver]

Just as an aside, if you already have a directory set up as a mirror image of the contents of the war file, then you don't need to use the "war" task at all. The regular zip task will create a fully-compliant war file much more simply, and without complaining:

<zip zipfile="${basedir}/webproj.war">
  <fileset dir="${webAppDir}"/>
</zip>

"war"? huh. What is it good for?

[Matt Harrah]

The war task is really designed to assemble a war file when you don't already have a directory that represents the contents of your war.

If you already have a directory that contains the contents of your exploded war file, with a WEB-INF and everything, the jar task is more appropriate.

If, however, you have classes in one place, and libraries in another, and a manifest somewhere else, and none of it is organized anything like a war file, the war task will put them all in the right place on-the-fly inside the war file without disrupting where they are in their original locations.