[MTOOLCHAINS-6] Cannot create custom toolchain type

[jira-importer]

Markus Karg opened MTOOLCHAINS-6 and commented

The web site says that it is possible to use other toolchains besides <jdk>.
Actually the site links to a nonexistent TBD page. This is very ugly.

Please tell the truth on the web page: It is simply impossible to use any other toolschain type besides <jdk>!

It would be really cool, if someone could simply write:

<toolchains>
  <type>installshield</type>
  <provides>
    <id>isx</id>
    <version>10.0</version>
    <vendor>macrovision</vendor>
  </provides>
  <configuration>
    <installshieldHome>C:\Program Files (x86)\InstallShield X</installshieldHome>
  </configuration>
</toolchains>

...and the plugin would in turn simply provide a property that one can read in the POM using ${installshieldHome} -- without any need to write Java code, register custom types, provide more xml, whatever!

This seems to be such an obvious need that I just cannot believe that it does not already work exactly that way in the 1.0 release of the toolchains plugin...! :-)

I really beg for that! :-)

---

Affects: 1.0

Issue Links:

• MNG-5718 Change 'provides' from Object to Properties in toolchains.xml

• MNG-5720 Change 'configuration' from Object to Properties in toolchains.xml

[jira-importer]

Hervé Boutemy commented

I'm actually working on documentation, trying to learn from public information available at the time work on this happened

I found NPanday's maven-dotnet-toolchain: https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/nmaven/trunk/components/maven-dotnet-toolchain/

Not sure it will work, since there are some mails about problems with extensions. But it seems one of the most advanced work on other toolchains than predefined jdk

If you're interested to work with me on this, I'm interested in feedback and discussions, mutualized research, ...

[jira-importer]

Markus Karg commented

Would be a pleasure to contribute to your work, but honestly I have not too much spare time. So if you have something I can test in my own toolchain, I'll be honored to try it and report the results, but I doubt I have time to do much more, unfortunately. Certainly, if my toolchain (for InstallShield X) works, I will publish it as open source!

[jira-importer]

Hervé Boutemy commented

custom toolchain IT added in r1636475

[jira-importer]

Hervé Boutemy commented

custom toolchain implementation updated to support changes from Maven 3.2.4 (MNG-5718 and MNG-5720) in r1636790

[jira-importer]

Mirko Friedenhagen commented

AFAIK protocol buffer maven plugin uses toolchain as well for the protoc location.

[jira-importer]

Hervé Boutemy commented

oh, yes, it seems there is a fork with custom toolchains support: http://sergei-ivanov.github.io/maven-protoc-plugin/examples/protobuf-toolchain.html / https://github.com/sergei-ivanov/maven-protoc-plugin
thank you for the pointer (notice the plugin is not published to central: this is an extension not maintained by core protobuf project)

I'll add it to our list of toolchain's aware plugins http://maven.apache.org/guides/mini/guide-using-toolchains.html, to list not only jdk-toolchain-aware plugins, but other toolchains too

and in protobuf, there is a good idea I'll integrate into the IT: have the plugin provide both the plugin and the toolchain, and mark it as extension, since I suppose custom toochains will often be tied to one plugin only (like protobuf), and not multiple (like jdk)

[jira-importer]

Hervé Boutemy commented

after creation of a full IT, documentation on custom tolchain added in r1637610

please review http://maven.eu.apache.org/plugins-archives/maven-toolchains-plugin-LATEST/toolchains/custom.html and give feedback before I release

[jira-importer]

Markus Karg commented

Thank you so much for your effort. This looks really promising. There are only few notes on your draft:

• Please introduce hyperlinks to the mentioned IT source code, as not everybody implementing a toolchain is aware of the source location of the mentioned classes.
• It is unclear, why one must extend DefaultTypechain but cannot just implement Typechain.
• There is a typo "epxected"
• For those not familiar with the concept of "extensions", it would be a big help if in "Using the Custom Toolchain and its Plugin" you would give clear advice, into WHICH pom.xml the particular XML snippets have to go: The toolchain, the separate plugins, or the end user's project pom?

As I have to build my own toolchain in the next months, there will be a beta test for your description soon. :-) Unfortunately I will not find the time to test it before end of the year, but nevertheless, thank you so much for your work!

Regards
-Markus

[jira-importer]

Hervé Boutemy commented

thank you for your useful feedback: documentation updated
http://maven.apache.org/plugins-archives/maven-toolchains-plugin-LATEST/toolchains/custom.html

I consider this is now ok

[jira-importer]

Sergei S. Ivanov commented

@Hervé: I've just stumbled upon this issue. It's good to know that my little plugin deserved a mention and was used as a reference implementation for documenting the use of toolchains. Back in the day I had to learn it the hard way, piecing together disparate bits of documentation and using the built-in implementation of java toolchain as a reference. I took a look at your latest documentation and the examples, and I can only say big thank you for the work you've done there. I see you even worked around MNG-5718, which I was hit with today after updating to Maven 3.2.5. That will be of a great to me in fixing my plugin for compatibility with the latest versions of Maven. Thanks a lot for that.

[jira-importer]

Hervé Boutemy commented

@sergei_ivanov thanks to you for your code: it was really useful to avoid me to learn the hard way
really, Open Source is great to let everybody benefit from each other's work