[ANN] Apache Ant 1.6beta3 released

[Stefan Bodewig]

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This is the third beta of Apache Ant 1.6 and scheduled to be the last
beta before the final release. You can download source and binary
releases from <http://cvs.apache.org/dist/ant/v1.6beta3/>.

Apart from bug fixes, Ant 1.6 introduces a lot of new features over
Ant 1.5, namely:

* <import> lets you import build files and override targets in the
imported build file. This enables modular build systems and allows
build files to be reused more easily.

* <macrodef> can be used to define new tasks as a collection of
existing tasks. This can be used to avoid <antcall>s that have only
been used to invoke templates.

* <antlib> is a new mechanism to extend Ant with new tasks and types
that goes beyond traditional <taskdef>. The major differences are
support for XML namespaces (each antlib can live in a namespace of its
own) and auto-discovery of the descriptor.

* You can now define custom conditions, filters or selectors as easily
as custom tasks.

* A new launcher starts Ant without putting too much into the system
CLASSPATH. It also prevents a command line length problem on Windows
and adds a new -lib argument that can be used to add directories of
jars that should be included in Ant's CLASSPATH without copying the
jars to ANT_HOME/lib.

* <presetdef> lets you define new tasks as existing task with
predefined attributes/nested children.

* a lot more (like SSH support) ...

See <http://cvs.apache.org/dist/ant/v1.6beta3/> and
<http://nagoya.apache.org/wiki/apachewiki.cgi?NewAntFeaturesInDetail>
for more details.

This beta introduces some slight incompatibilities over the previous
betas but is expected to be fully compatible with the final release.

The most important changes over the beta2 release are

* <macrodef> now uses @{attribute} instead of ${attribute} to
highlight that attributes are not properties.

* XML namespace handling for child elements of tasks has been changed
to closer match the behavior expected by XML namespace aware tools
(i.e. you have to use the same namespace prefix for child elements as
for the task unless they actually are part of Ant's core).

* The shipped XML APIs now match the shipped version of Xerces.

Thank you for using Ant
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