Debugging Ant tasks in Eclipse
Today I came an issue that required me to debug a custom Ant task that we have. While the Eclipse integrated debugger allows you to step through the targets and tasks in the build.xml file using the action Debug As -> Ant Script, it doesn’t actually let you step into the java class that implements the task. This is a major drawback, as most of the complexity (and issues 
) tend to be in the task implementation code.
After searching around for a bit, I came across the Eclipse Remote Debugger debug configuration. This configuration allows you to remotely debug applications, by establishing a JDWP (Java Debug Wire Protocol, part of JPDA – Java Platform Debug Architecture) connection between the running application and the debugger. After learning about this, setting up the environment to debugg Ant tasks from within Eclipse was pretty straightforward.
The first step is to setup the Ant script launcher to run in debug mode and attach to the debug server. The following should be used as JRE arguments for the Ant configuration:
-Xdebug -agentlib:jdwp=transport=dt_socket,server=y,address=8000
You can setup your Ant configuration by going to Run -> External Tools -> External Tools Configurations and creating a new Ant Build configuration. Inser the location of the build file in the main tab and setup the arguments in the JRE tab:
After the Ant configuration is setup, we need to take care of the remote debugger configuration. Go to Run -> Debug Configurations… and create a new configuration for Remote Java Application. Make sure you set the same port number that you used in the Ant configuration, and you are good to go.
Now, place the breakpoints in your build.xml and java classes. In order to debug, you need to first launch the Ant script and then attach the debugger to it. Do right click in the build.xml file and select Debug As -> Ant Script. Then go to Run -> Debug Configurations… select the Remote Ant Debugger and click Debug. The debugger will now attach to the running proccess and let you step through both the xml file and the java classes:
Have fun!
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September 3rd, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Very usefull information. Thanks a lot.
Nicolas
October 14th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Vitor
Thanks for this.
Overcame a big hurdle with this
Ours was a little bit more complicated, since we also had testng sitting in the middle
Cheers
Nithya
June 11th, 2010 at 8:40 am
Thank you for providing this information but I cannot get it to work at all (in eclipse) Without remote debugging args I can step through the ant script. With them the task simple terminates immediately.
I will keep looking for a solution as it must be some small configuration issue. Perhaps the eclipse cabal will address this oversight in a new version
jg
July 7th, 2010 at 9:41 pm
Nice guide although I had a little trouble when I tried this in Helios. It turns out that the -Xdebug VM argument is not required and actually stops this from working as expected even though the remote debugger seems to attach properly.
If you are having this issue where the ant thread and remote debugging thread are running but it doesn’t seem to be hitting your breakpoint and the debugging perspective does not show the current pointer then try use these VM arguments instead:
-agentlib:jdwp=transport=dt_socket,server=y,address=8000
January 21st, 2011 at 4:36 am
instead of Xdebug you can try using Xrunjdwp:
-Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,address=8000,server=y,suspend=n
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June 20th, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Hi,
I have followed all the above specified step above but debug point does not come on java. I have specified the JVM argument in workspace JRE.
Please help me on this.
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