WAR Task

## War

### Description

An extension of the Jar task with special treatment for files that should end up in the `WEB-INF/lib`, `WEB-INF/classes` or `WEB-INF` directories of the Web Application Archive.

(The War task is a shortcut for specifying the particular layout of a WAR file. The same thing can be accomplished by using the prefix and fullpath attributes of zipfilesets in a Zip or Jar task.)

The extended zipfileset element from the zip task (with attributes prefix, fullpath, and src) is available in the War task. The task is also resource-enabled and will add nested resources and resource collections to the archive.

Before Servlet API 2.5/Java EE 5, a WEB-INF/web.xml file was mandatory in a WAR file, so this task failed if the `webxml` attribute was missing. As the web.xml file is now optional, the `webxml` attribute may now be made optional. However, as most real web applications do need a web.xml file, it is not optional by default. The task will fail if the file is not included, unless the `needxmlfile` attribute is set to `true`. The task will warn if more than one web.xml file is added to the JAR through the filesets.

Please note that the Zip format allows multiple files of the same fully-qualified name to exist within a single archive. This has been documented as causing various problems for unsuspecting users. If you wish to avoid this behavior you must set the `duplicate` attribute to a value other than its default, `"add"`.

### Parameters

Attribute | Description | Required
destfile | the WAR file to create. | Exactly one of the two.
warfile | Deprecated name of the file to create -use `destfile` instead.
webxml | The servlet configuration descriptor to use (WEB-INF/web.xml). | Yes, unless `needxmlfile` is true, the file is pulled in via a nested fileset, or an existing WAR file is being updated.
needxmlfile | Flag to indicate whether or not the web.xml file is needed. I=it should be set to false when generating servlet 2.5+ WAR files without a web.xml file. Since Ant 1.7 | No -default "true"
basedir | the directory from which to jar the files. | No
compress | Not only store data but also compress them, defaults to true. Unless you set the keepcompression attribute to false, this will apply to the entire archive, not only the files you've added while updating. | No
keepcompression | For entries coming from existing archives (like nested zipfilesets or while updating the archive), keep the compression as it has been originally instead of using the compress attribute. Defaults false. Since Ant 1.6 | No
encoding | The character encoding to use for filenames inside the archive. Defaults to UTF8. It is not recommended to change this value as the created archive will most likely be unreadable for Java otherwise. | No
filesonly | Store only file entries, defaults to false | No
includes | comma- or space-separated list of patterns of files that must be included. All files are included when omitted. | No
includesfile | the name of a file. Each line of this file is taken to be an include pattern | No
excludes | comma- or space-separated list of patterns of files that must be excluded. No files (except default excludes) are excluded when omitted. | No
excludesfile | the name of a file. Each line of this file is taken to be an exclude pattern | No
defaultexcludes | indicates whether default excludes should be used or not ("yes"/"no"). Default excludes are used when omitted. | No
manifest | the manifest file to use. | No
update | indicates whether to update or overwrite the destination file if it already exists. Default is "false". | No
duplicate | behavior when a duplicate file is found. Valid values are "add", "preserve", and "fail". The default value is "add". | No
roundup | Whether the file modification times will be rounded up to the next even number of seconds. Zip archives store file modification times with a granularity of two seconds, so the times will either be rounded up or down. If you round down, the archive will always seem out-of-date when you rerun the task, so the default is to round up. Rounding up may lead to a different type of problems like JSPs inside a web archive that seem to be slightly more recent than precompiled pages, rendering precompilation useless. Defaults to true. Since Ant 1.6.2 | No
level | Non-default level at which file compression should be performed. Valid values range from 0 (no compression/fastest) to 9 (maximum compression/slowest). Since Ant 1.7 | No

### Nested elements

#### lib

The nested `lib` element specifies a FileSet. All files included in this fileset will end up in the `WEB-INF/lib` directory of the war file.

#### classes

The nested `classes` element specifies a FileSet. All files included in this fileset will end up in the `WEB-INF/classes` directory of the war file.

#### webinf

The nested `webinf` element specifies a FileSet. All files included in this fileset will end up in the `WEB-INF` directory of the war file. If this fileset includes a file named `web.xml`, the file is ignored and you will get a warning.

#### metainf

The nested `metainf` element specifies a FileSet. All files included in this fileset will end up in the `META-INF` directory of the war file. If this fileset includes a file named `MANIFEST.MF`, the file is ignored and you will get a warning.

### Examples

Assume the following structure in the project's base directory:

    thirdparty/libs/jdbc1.jar
    thirdparty/libs/jdbc2.jar
    build/main/com/myco/myapp/Servlet.class
    src/metadata/myapp.xml
    src/html/myapp/index.html
    src/jsp/myapp/front.jsp
    src/graphics/images/gifs/small/logo.gif
    src/graphics/images/gifs/large/logo.gif

then the war file `myapp.war` created with

    <war destfile="myapp.war" webxml="src/metadata/myapp.xml">
      <fileset dir="src/html/myapp"/>
      <fileset dir="src/jsp/myapp"/>
      <lib dir="thirdparty/libs">
        <exclude name="jdbc1.jar"/>
      </lib>
      <classes dir="build/main"/>
      <zipfileset dir="src/graphics/images/gifs"
                  prefix="images"/>
    </war>

will consist of

    WEB-INF/web.xml
    WEB-INF/lib/jdbc2.jar
    WEB-INF/classes/com/myco/myapp/Servlet.class
    META-INF/MANIFEST.MF
    index.html
    front.jsp
    images/small/logo.gif
    images/large/logo.gif

using Ant's default manifest file. The content of `WEB-INF/web.xml` is identical to `src/metadata/myapp.xml`.

We regulary receive bug reports that this task is creating the WEB-INF directory, and thus it is our fault your webapp doesn't work. The cause of these complaints lies in WinZip, which turns an all upper-case directory into an all lower case one in a fit of helpfulness. Please check that `jar xvf yourwebapp.war` shows the same behaviour before filing another report.
Winzip has an option allowing all uppercase names (which is off by default!). It can be enabled by: Menu "Options" -> "Configuration", "View" property/tab page, then "General" group box has an option called "Allow all uppercase file names".