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P H I N G |
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What is it? |
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----------- |
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Phing is a PHP based build tool. In theory it is kind of like "make" |
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without makes drawbacks and with the full portability and performance |
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of PHP. (PH)pmake (I)s (N)ot (G)numake |
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Why? |
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---- |
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Why another build tool when there is already make, gnumake, nmake, jam, ant, |
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and others? Because all those tools have limitations that the binarycloud |
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development team could not live with when developing software across |
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different platforms. Make-like tools are inherently shell-based: they |
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evaluate a set of dependencies, then execute commands not unlike what you |
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would issue on a shell. |
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This means that you can easily extend these tools by using or writing any |
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program for the OS that you are working on; however, this also means that |
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you limit yourself to the OS, or at least the OS type, such as Unix, that |
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you are working on. |
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Makefiles are inherently evil as well. Anybody who has worked on them for |
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any time has run into the dreaded tab problem. "Is my command not executing |
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because I have a space in front of my tab?!!". Tools like Jam took care of |
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this to a great degree, but still have yet another format to use and |
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remember. Of course there is the Java based build tool ant, that is very |
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good approach to what now Phing is. But still based on Java you have to have |
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at least a running JRE installation on your plattfrom. |
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Great for Java projects but we thought this is very consistent way to build |
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a PHP based project. Additionally ant does not support a autoconf tool that |
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writes out proper buildfiles based on some simple rules prior defined in a |
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XML Configuration file. |
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Phing is different. Instead of a model where it is extended with shell-based |
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commands, Phing is extended using PHP classes. Instead of writing shell |
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commands, the configuration files are XML-based, calling a target tree where |
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various tasks get executed. Each task is run by an object that implements |
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a particular Task action. |
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Of course, this removes some of the expressive power that is inherent in |
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being able to construct a shell command such as |
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% `find . -name foo -exec rm {}` |
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but it gives you the ability to be cross-platform - to work anywhere and |
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everywhere. And if you really need to execute a shell command, Phing has an <exec> |
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task that allows different commands to be executed based on the operating |
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system it is executing on. |
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The Latest Version |
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------------------ |
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Details of the latest version can be found on the Phing homepage |
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<http://phing.info/>. |
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Documentation |
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------------- |
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Documentation is available in XHTML format in the docs/ directory. In particular, |
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open the docs/phing_guide/book/index.html in a frames-compatible browser to see the |
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phing user guide. |
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For online documentation, you can also visit the Phing website: http://phing.info/ |
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Licensing |
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This software is licensed under the terms you may find in the file |
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named "LICENSE" in this directory. |
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Thanks for using PHING. |
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--$Id$ |
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