can I turn off the .ivy cache all together?

Question

Is there a way to tell ant/ivy to not use a local $HOME/.ivy2 cache?

Answer 1

I'd create an ivysettings.xml file and specify the location of my cache using the caches directive:

<ivysettings>
    <settings defaultResolver="central"/>
    <caches defaultCacheDir="${ivy.settings.dir}/cache"/>
    <resolvers>
        <ibiblio name="central" m2compatible="true"/>
    </resolvers>
</ivysettings>

I think this more explicit and is less cryptic than setting the property ivy.default.ivy.user.dir within your build file.

Update

Using this approach the ivy cleancache task can be used to purge your nominated cache directory.

<target name="clean-all" depends="clean">
    <ivy:cleancache />
</target>