1 | _________________________ |
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2 | P H I N G |
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3 | |
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4 | |
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5 | |
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6 | What is it? |
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7 | ----------- |
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8 | |
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9 | Phing is a PHP based build tool. In theory it is kind of like "make" |
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10 | without makes drawbacks and with the full portability and performance |
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11 | of PHP. (PH)pmake (I)s (N)ot (G)numake |
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12 | |
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13 | Why? |
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14 | ---- |
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15 | |
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16 | Why another build tool when there is already make, gnumake, nmake, jam, ant, |
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17 | and others? Because all those tools have limitations that the binarycloud |
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18 | development team could not live with when developing software across |
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19 | different platforms. Make-like tools are inherently shell-based: they |
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20 | evaluate a set of dependencies, then execute commands not unlike what you |
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21 | would issue on a shell. |
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22 | |
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23 | This means that you can easily extend these tools by using or writing any |
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24 | program for the OS that you are working on; however, this also means that |
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25 | you limit yourself to the OS, or at least the OS type, such as Unix, that |
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26 | you are working on. |
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27 | |
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28 | Makefiles are inherently evil as well. Anybody who has worked on them for |
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29 | any time has run into the dreaded tab problem. "Is my command not executing |
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30 | because I have a space in front of my tab?!!". Tools like Jam took care of |
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31 | this to a great degree, but still have yet another format to use and |
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32 | remember. Of course there is the Java based build tool ant, that is very |
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33 | good approach to what now Phing is. But still based on Java you have to have |
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34 | at least a running JRE installation on your plattfrom. |
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35 | Great for Java projects but we thought this is very consistent way to build |
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36 | a PHP based project. Additionally ant does not support a autoconf tool that |
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37 | writes out proper buildfiles based on some simple rules prior defined in a |
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38 | XML Configuration file. |
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39 | |
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40 | Phing is different. Instead of a model where it is extended with shell-based |
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41 | commands, Phing is extended using PHP classes. Instead of writing shell |
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42 | commands, the configuration files are XML-based, calling a target tree where |
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43 | various tasks get executed. Each task is run by an object that implements |
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44 | a particular Task action. |
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45 | |
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46 | Of course, this removes some of the expressive power that is inherent in |
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47 | being able to construct a shell command such as |
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48 | % `find . -name foo -exec rm {}` |
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49 | but it gives you the ability to be cross-platform - to work anywhere and |
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50 | everywhere. And if you really need to execute a shell command, Phing has an <exec> |
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51 | task that allows different commands to be executed based on the operating |
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52 | system it is executing on. |
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53 | |
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54 | The Latest Version |
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55 | ------------------ |
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56 | |
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57 | Details of the latest version can be found on the Phing homepage |
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58 | <http://phing.info/>. |
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59 | |
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60 | Documentation |
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61 | ------------- |
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62 | |
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63 | Documentation is available in XHTML format in the docs/ directory. In particular, |
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64 | open the docs/phing_guide/book/index.html in a frames-compatible browser to see the |
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65 | phing user guide. |
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66 | |
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67 | For online documentation, you can also visit the Phing website: http://phing.info/ |
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68 | |
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69 | Licensing |
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70 | --------- |
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71 | |
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72 | This software is licensed under the terms you may find in the file |
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73 | named "LICENSE" in this directory. |
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74 | |
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75 | Thanks for using PHING. |
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76 | |
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77 | |
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78 | --$Id: README 364 2008-05-11 02:33:32Z hans $ |
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