what is org.eclipse.wst.common.component and how to use it for ant

Question

I have an eclipse workspace (for work) that has an ear project that I use to "export"/deploy an ear file to a JBoss server.

However, they recently asked me to create an ant script that can build the workspace and create the ear, and I have done this successfully. The problem arises when I try to run my program with this ear that was built using the ant script; for deploying I'm simply copying the resulting ear file and pasting it into the JBoss/standalone/deployments folder and running the application.

The JBoss AS starts fine, but then I get a few exceptions that halt my application that I do not get when I do a build and deploy through eclipse. The two ear files are identical when viewing the two ear files using 7zip, however I see in the eclipse workspace, in the ear project, theres a .settings folder that has 4 files, one of them being org.eclipse.wst.common.component and I'm guessing this (if not all 4 files) is necessary when deploying somehow.

Does ecplise use this .settings folder and the files inside when deploying an ear? What happens during this process? and how can I replicate it in an ant script so that my application runs identically from either ant or eclipse builds?

EDIT

let me just add that none of the files in the .settings folder get packaged up in the ear file, so I'm guessing they're somehow used when eclipse does a build/deploy, but it doesnt get placed in the final ear product

thank you

Answer 1

Eclipse uses the data in org.eclipse.wst.common.component to figure out the dependencies needed for deployment. The file corresponds to the settings found in Eclipse when Right-clicking on an EAR project > Properties > Deployment Assembly.

E.g. if your EAR project has a dependency on a WAR project then Eclipse knows to include the WAR when deploying because of the Deployment Assembly settings which get stored in org.eclipse.wst.common.component

When building the EAR using Ant you need to add these dependencies manually (without relying on Eclipse metadata)