Configuring ant to run unit tests. Where should libraries be? How should classpath be configured? avoiding ZipException

Question

I\'m trying to run my junit tests using ant. The tests are kicked off using a JUnit 4 test suite. If I run this direct from Eclipse the tests complete without error. However i

Answer 1

This error is caused specifically because the class path contains explicit references to one or more [files] that are not JAR's. The reference to "error in opening zip file" is of course that a JAR is in effect a ZIP file where as other files [JUNIT] has found like class files are not and as such do not have a zip format. So the class path should contain only explicit references to JAR [files] and/or the names of the [directories] where other resources like class files are to be found.

So when building up your class path (in ANT) use:

<path id="proj.class.path">
    <pathelement location="c:/my/project/root" />       :one for each of the [directories] where class files, log4j property files and other resources etc are to be found
    <fileset refid="my.file.set">                   :to describe all the explicit JAR [files] that need to be on the class path.
</path>

where

<fileset id="my.file.set" dir="c:/where/i/keep/my/jars">
    <filename name="myjar1.jar" />
    <filename name="myjar2.jar" />
    <filename name="myjar3.jar" />
</fileset>

or

NOTE: When using wild cards like [**/*] in you need to make sure the wild card is not matching files that are not JAR files

<fileset id="my.file.set" dir="c:/where/i/keep/my/jars">
    <include name="**/*.jar" />
</fileset>

Answer 2

If you are using Ubuntu or Debian, this will make JUnit (and some other libs) always available for Ant:

sudo apt-get install ant-optional

Answer 3

Found my problem. I had included my classes directory in my path using a fileset as opposed to a pathelement this was causing .class files to be opened as ZipFiles which of course threw an exception.

Answer 4

Thanks guys for this information. I just want to add some tip from my experience. I have the same problem with junit as you when junit tryes to open license*.txt files in lib folder where *.jar resides.(Ivy resolve process puts them here) So

<path id="lib.path.id">
    <fileset dir="${lib.dir}" includes="**.jar"/>
</path>

helps too.

Answer 5

It sounds like there is an issue with paths.

Check following error source:

• classpath: print out the classpath variable in a junit test, run it from eclipse and ant, so you can compare them
• Check your project for absolute paths. Probably, ant uses other path prefixes than eclipse.

Some more information would help to help :)

Good luck!