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I am not sure why the xml build script structure is so strange, but anyway this normalizes it and makes it possible to build the xml modules just by using the normal -Dmodules=... syntax, or in fact in the bloated config. Making an "alias" for a bunch of modules is not possible in the current infrastructure; you can alias their top-level all-* build targets, but you still need to merge the results later. IMHO nb_all/xml/build.xml should simply be deleted, it serves no basic purpose.
Created attachment 3276 [details] Suggested patch
I do not agree. I think it is VERY useful to have one common target / build_script for all xml modules, while they are in one CVS project nb_all/xml. When I want to create NB with XML modules, I just type 'ant -Dmodules=xml merge' in nb_all/nbbuild to compile all XML modules to already compiled IDE. I do not want specify eight modules, it is not comfortable. If you want, you can create just 'xml/compat' target, but there should be still 'xml' target, which will depend on all particular modules. Same for nb_all/xml/build.xml. This is common way, how to build all stuff of nb_all/xml project. Please, do not change it as Jesse suggest. It does not make sense to me.
Close as WONTFIX if you want. I am curious how -Dmodules=xml merge actually merges anything; does xml/build.xml copy everything into xml/netbeans/ from xml/*/netbeans/? This seems wasteful. Maybe it would be nice to have a general alias system for module sets (instead of or in addition to module configs), as has been requested anyway. Technically passing -Dmodules=xml/core,...,xml/compat is the correct way to do it, it is just a matter of convenience to not have to type them all.
When there will be better support from nbbuild, I will change it. But current solution is the best for me, from my point of view.