[FIXED] How to compile a Web App in Netbeans without using Tomcat or Glassfish

Issue

I need to compile a webapp created with Netbeans (7.2) in Jenkins and I have an error indicating that I need to pass this argument to Ant:

-Dj2ee.server.home=<app_server_installation_directory>

I would like to compile the project without Tomcat or Glassfish dependency in Windows and Linux. Is it possible?

Solution

The solution is to create a -pre-build task in build.xml Ant script to download Tomcat (or Glassfish) and set j2ee.server.home dependency to the correct library path.

<target name="-post-clean">
    <deltree dir="download" />
    <deltree dir="temp" />
</target>

<!--<target name="-pre-init" depends="check-dependencies" if="tomcat.present">-->
<target name="-pre-init">        
    <property name="custom-tomcat-version" value="apache-tomcat-7.0.33" />

    <mkdir dir="temp"/>
    <get src="http://apache.rediris.es/tomcat/tomcat-7/v7.0.33/bin/apache-tomcat-7.0.33.zip" dest="temp/${custom-tomcat-version}.zip"/>

    <unzip dest="download/image" src="temp/${custom-tomcat-version}.zip">
        <patternset>
            <include name="apache-tomcat-7.*/lib/*"/>
        </patternset>
        <mapper>
            <globmapper from="apache-tomcat-7.*/lib/*" to="*"/>
        </mapper>
    </unzip>

    <!-- NB Ant script requieres this propertie to be assigned -->
    <property name="j2ee.server.home" value="download/image/${custom-tomcat-version}"/>
</target>

¡¡Bien!! It works like a charm!!

Answered By - gavioto