Advanced Topics - eXist: A NoSQL Database and Application Development Platform - page 486

Not all aspects of the eXist project are on GitHub, only the source
code and issue tracker. The mailing lists and downloads of com‐
piled releases remain at SourceForge for the time being. Whatever
the infrastructure of the project, links to the latest locations will
always be available from the eXist website .

The eXist source code is built with the Apache Ant build tool. eXist includes a copy
of the Ant runtime in its $EXIST_HOME/lib/tools/ant folder so that you do not need
to separately install it. eXist's Ant build scripts are just a series of XML files and can
be found in $EXIST_HOME/build.xml and $EXIST_HOME/build/scripts . However,
rather than having you use them directly, eXist provides two executable scripts that
run Ant with the appropriate build scripts: $EXIST_HOME/build.sh (for Unix/
Linux/Mac platforms) and $EXIST_HOME/build.bat (for Windows platforms).

The settings for the build are configurable: take a look at
$EXIST_HOME/build.properties . This is particularly useful when
you are working in a corporate environment behind a proxy server,
as eXist may attempt to download some resources as part of the
build. You can configure this using the proxy settings in
build.properties .

When executing the build script, you can provide one or more targets that describe
which build action(s) you wish to take. There are many build targets available, some
of the most useful of which are described in Table 16-9 . The table is followed by
Example 16-15 , which demonstrates the typical sequence of building eXist from
source code.

Table 16-9. Useful eXist Ant build targets

Target Description

Removes all compiled code. Useful when you wish to do a clean recompile.

clean

Similar to clean , but also deletes the database.
Use with care!

clean-all

Compiles just the eXist source code into JAR files.

jar

Builds any extension modules that are defined and enabled in $EXIST_HOME/extensions/build.properties .
Can be used by itself to compile in new extension modules to an existing installation.

extension-
modules

Builds the Java Service Wrapper for eXist. See “Windows Linux and Other Unix” on page 407 .

wrapper