How to use ANT API?

[NarayanaBuddepu]

Hello,
I have a problem working with ANT API. Inorder to extract files from CVS I'm using ANT API. I made use of the AbstractCvsTask class and I created connections and necessary actions by making use of the methods, setCvsroot(),setPackage(),setDest(),setCommand(). I used execute() method to execute the CVS command but I got a NULL pointer exception at that method. Can anybody help me in finding a way out. Or please provide me with suitable sample code in accessing CVS through Java.
Thanks in advance,
Narayana.

[mnuttall]

Have you tried it with a build.xml yet? I've never tried using the api directly from java code. I have successfully used ant to access cvs via scripts successfully. See how they are doing it.

[NarayanaBuddepu]

Hi,
Thanks for the reply. I tried using the build.xml. It even worked for me. I have a requirement where in I need to work with ANT API inorder to extract files from CVS. The requirement is that I need to extract files where the file name is my input and it comes dynamically. Is there any way out in doing the above task ? If we can provide the file name dynamically to the build.xml then my problem will be solved.
Thanks in advance,
-Narayana

[mnuttall]

ant can use property files. You can create that dynamically then all ant that and the build script.

[NarayanaBuddepu]

I'll give you a clear idea of my task and please suggest a preferable solution for this one.

I need to extract files from CVS using ant. The files I need to extract are the ones "which are only modified between the versions " . For that I used "cvsTagDiff" tag in ANT and I got the file names list into another xml file. Now I need to read each file name from the new xml file and extract those files from the CVS. For this, I planned to develop a java program and execute it using ant itself. Is there any suggestable way for this task?

Thanks in advance for the response...
-Narayana