Building and testing Java with Ant

Introduction

This guide shows you how to create a workflow that performs continuous integration (CI) for your Java project using the Ant build system. The workflow you create will allow you to see when commits to a pull request cause build or test failures against your default branch; this approach can help ensure that your code is always healthy. You can extend your CI workflow to upload artifacts from a workflow run.

GitHub-hosted runners have a tools cache with pre-installed software, which includes Java Development Kits (JDKs) and Ant. For a list of software and the pre-installed versions for JDK and Ant, see "Specifications for GitHub-hosted runners".

Prerequisites

You should be familiar with YAML and the syntax for GitHub Actions. For more information, see:

• "Workflow syntax for GitHub Actions"
• "Learn GitHub Actions"

We recommend that you have a basic understanding of Java and the Ant framework. For more information, see the Apache Ant Manual.

Starting with an Ant workflow template

GitHub provides an Ant workflow template that will work for most Ant-based Java projects. For more information, see the Ant workflow template.

To get started quickly, you can choose the preconfigured Ant template when you create a new workflow. For more information, see the "GitHub Actions quickstart."

You can also add this workflow manually by creating a new file in the .github/workflows directory of your repository.

name: Java CI

on: [push]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Set up JDK 11
        uses: actions/setup-java@v2
        with:
          java-version: '11'
          distribution: 'adopt'
      - name: Build with Ant
        run: ant -noinput -buildfile build.xml

This workflow performs the following steps:

1. The checkout step downloads a copy of your repository on the runner.
2. The setup-java step configures the Java 11 JDK by Adoptium.
3. The "Build with Ant" step runs the default target in your build.xml in non-interactive mode.

The default workflow templates are excellent starting points when creating your build and test workflow, and you can customize the template to suit your project’s needs.

Ejecución en un sistema operativo diferente

La plantilla inicial de flujo de trabajo configura los jobs para que se ejecuten en Linux, utilizando los ejecutores ubuntu-latest hospedados en GitHub. Puedes cambiar la clave runs-on para ejecutar tus jobs en un sistema operativo diferente. Por ejemplo, puedes utilizar los ejecutores de Windows hospedados en GitHub.

runs-on: windows-latest

O puedes utilizar los ejecutores de macOS hospedados en GitHub.

runs-on: macos-latest

También puedes ejecutar jobs en contenedores de Docker, o puedes proporcionar un ejecutor auto-hospedado que se ejecute en tu propia infraestructura. Para obtener más información, consulta "Sintaxis de flujo de trabajo para GitHub Actions".

Especificar la versión y arquitectura de JVM

La plantilla inicial de flujo de trabajo configura el PATH para que contenga OpenJDK 8 para las plataformas x64. Si quieres utilizar una versión diferente de Java, o enfocarte en una arquitectura diferente (x64 o x86), puedes utilizar la acción setup-java para elegir un ambiente de ejecución de Java diferente.

Por ejemplo, para utilizar la versión 9.0.4 del JDK para una plataforma x64, puedes utilizar la acción setup-java y configurar los parámetros java-version y architecture en '9.0.4' y x64.

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v2
  - name: Set up JDK 9.0.4 for x64
    uses: actions/setup-java@v1
    with:
      java-version: '9.0.4'
      architecture: x64

Para obtener más información, consulta la acción setup-java.

Building and testing your code

You can use the same commands that you use locally to build and test your code.

The starter workflow will run the default target specified in your build.xml file. Your default target will commonly be set to build classes, run tests and package classes into their distributable format, for example, a JAR file.

If you use different commands to build your project, or you want to run a different target, you can specify those. For example, you may want to run the jar target that's configured in your build-ci.xml file.

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v2
  - uses: actions/setup-java@v2
    with:
      java-version: '11'
      distribution: 'adopt'
  - name: Run the Ant jar target
    run: ant -noinput -buildfile build-ci.xml jar

Packaging workflow data as artifacts

After your build has succeeded and your tests have passed, you may want to upload the resulting Java packages as a build artifact. This will store the built packages as part of the workflow run, and allow you to download them. Artifacts can help you test and debug pull requests in your local environment before they're merged. For more information, see "Persisting workflow data using artifacts."

Ant will usually create output files like JARs, EARs, or WARs in the build/jar directory. You can upload the contents of that directory using the upload-artifact action.

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v2
  - uses: actions/setup-java@v2
    with:
      java-version: '11'
      distribution: 'adopt'
  
  - run: ant -noinput -buildfile build.xml
  - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v2
    with:
      name: Package
      path: build/jar