Software Secret Weapons: How To Use Linguine Maps From Ant Build Files

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Linguine Maps provides clean object-oriented diagramming API for graph visualization. This is how it works:

run our Java code from command line or from a custom Ant task
specify two parameters

the name of the input source file to visualize
the name of the output GIF to be created

Our Java code parses the input file and creates the drawing.

Here is a smallest working Apache Ant build file for programmatic visualization:


<project name="Test" default="build" basedir=".">

  <property name="doc" location="doc"/>
  <property name="bin" location="bin"/>
  <property name="dot.exe" location="${bin}/graphviz-2.4/bin/dot.exe" />
	
  <taskdef 
    name="ant2gif" 
    classname="com.oy.shared.lm.ant.ANTtoGIFTask" 
    classpath="${dist}/lib/oy-lm-1.3.jar"
  />	
		
  <target name="build" >		
    <ant2gif  
	caption="XML file for launching Catalina 5.0.25 applications using Apache Ant."
	rotated="true"
	colors="cyan, lightcyan, orange, black, black"
	inFile="${src}/com/oy/shared/lm/test/ant/catalina-5.0.25.xml" 
	dotFile="${doc}/test/ant/catalina-5.0.25.dot" 
	outFile="${doc}/test/ant/catalina-5.0.25.gif"
	exeFile="${dot.exe}"
	/>
  </target>		
</project>

There are several tasks for programmatic visualization of various files types. Before using them, you would need to define a custom Ant task. You can define custom tasks as follows:


<taskdef 
  name="ant2gif" 
  classname="com.oy.shared.lm.ant.ANTtoGIFTask" 
  classpath="${dist}/lib/oy-lm-1.3.jar"
/>	
<taskdef 
  name="ojb2gif" 
  classname="com.oy.shared.lm.ant.OJBtoGIFTask" 
  classpath="${dist}/lib/oy-lm-1.3.jar"
/>	
<taskdef 
  name="hbm2gif" 
  classname="com.oy.shared.lm.ant.HBMtoGIFTask" 
  classpath="${dist}/lib/oy-lm-1.3.jar"
/>	
<taskdef 
  name="dtd2gif" 
  classname="com.oy.shared.lm.ant.DTDtoGIFTask" 
  classpath="${dist}/lib/oy-lm-1.3.jar"
/>
<taskdef 
  name="wsdl2gif" 
  classname="com.oy.shared.lm.ant.WSDLtoGIFTask" 
  classpath="${dist}/lib/oy-lm-1.3.jar"
/>

After new tasks have been defined you can use them in the Ant build files as shown in the example above. All tasks have identical set of parameters, with following usage:

Parameter Name	Description	Required
inFile	qualified name for the input file (depends on the task)	required
dotFile	qualified name for the intermediate output file	required
outFile	qualified name for the images output file	required; can end with .gif, .png, .jpg, etc.
exeFile	qualified name for the Graphviz 2.4 executable	required
colors	comma separated list of colors (depends on the task)	optional; can use #RRGGBB format
includes	comma separated list of entity names that are included into the diagram	optional
excludes	comma separated list of entity names that are excluded from the diagram	optional
rotated	"true\|false"; controls page orientation	optional, default "false"
detailed	"true\|false"; controls amount of details in the diagram	optional, default "true"
caption	title of the diagram	optional
fontName	font name for the diagram	optional, default "Helvetica"
fontSize	base font size for the diagram	optional, default "10"
attr	custom Graphviz attributes for the diagram	optional
nodeAttr	custom Graphviz attributes for the nodes	optional
edgeAttr	custom Graphviz attributes for the edges	optional
qualifiedNames	"true\|false"; strips package names class from names	default "true"; optional
expandEntityRef	"true\|false"; forces processing of XML ENTITY	default "false"; optional

Starting with release 1.3 HBM2GIF task in addition to a inFile attribute supports nested <fileset> elements. In this case a single diagram is produced reflecting contents of all mapping files contained in the <fileset>. For example:


<hbm2gif  
  caption="HIBERNATE - Animal & Beings"
  rotated="true"
  colors="#FF5937, black, black"
  dotFile="${doc}/test/hbm/AnimalBeings.dot" 
  outFile="${doc}/test/hbm/AnimalBeings.png"
  exeFile="${dot.exe}"
>
	<fileset dir="${src}/com/oy/shared/lm/test/hbm/">
		<include name="Animal.hbm.xml"/>
		<include name="Beings.hbm.xml"/>
	</fileset>
</hbm2gif>

Please review runme.xml or runme-adv.xml files for more examples of use of these Ant tasks and their parameters.

Comment (1)

Comment by Kolorowanki — June 28, 2009 @ 6:15 pm

nice API:)
Cheers for that!
M.K.