running ant programmatically: "Cannot use SUN rmic"

Question

I start Ant programmatically from within a Java class:

    File buildFile= new File("buildAppl.xml");
if (!buildFile.exists()) {
    return false;
}
Project p = new Project();
p.setUserProperty("ant.file", buildFile.getAbsolutePath());
p.setProperty("java.home", "C:\\Program Files\\Java\\jdk1.6.0_37");
p.addBuildListener(logger);
try {
    p.fireBuildStarted();
    p.init();
    ProjectHelper helper = ProjectHelper.getProjectHelper();
    p.addReference("ant.projectHelper", helper);
    helper.parse(p, buildFile);
    p.executeTarget("build");
    p.fireBuildFinished(null);
} catch (BuildException e) {
    p.fireBuildFinished(e);
    return false;
}

When I debug it with Exclipse I get the following error:

X:\update\jTag\build\buildAppl.xml:114: The following error occurred while executing this line: X:\update\jTag\project\buildAppl.xml:107: Cannot use SUN rmic, as it is not available. A common solution is to set the environment variable JAVA_HOME

I have checked the following:

• Environment variables JAVA_HOME and PATH are set correctly.
• The eclipse preference "Installed JREs" defaults to C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_37
• The project property "java.home" is set to "C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_37" (see above)

The description of the rmic task in the build file looks similar to this:

        <rmic base="${classDirClient}" debug="true" classname="x.y.z.ProcessingServiceRmiImpl">
        <classpath>
            <fileset refid="classpathClient"/>
        </classpath>
    </rmic>
    <rmic base="${classDirClient}" debug="true" classname="x.y.z.RmiXmlMessengerClient">
        <classpath>
            <fileset refid="classpathClient"/>
        </classpath>
    </rmic>

When running Ant interactively in Eclipse it builds ok.

What can I do to circumvent this error?

Answer 1

As of Java 5, rmic is no longer required. The RMI system in Java 5 and later can operate using dynamic proxies rather than statically pre-compiled stubs, so you only need rmic if you have to support clients on Java 1.4 or earlier.