Using updated tools with WLS 8.1 SP3

Question

I'm attempting to take advantage of some ant 1.6 features. However, it appears that the ant XML parsers are getting in the way of the embedded WLS xml parsers:
[servicegen] java.lang.ClassCastException
[servicegen] at weblogic.apache.xerces.parsers.SAXParser.<init>(SAXParser.java:140)
[servicegen] at weblogic.apache.xerces.parsers.SAXParser.<init>(SAXParser.java:125)
[servicegen] at weblogic.apache.xerces.jaxp.SAXParserImpl.<init>(SAXParserImpl.java:102)
[servicegen] at weblogic.apache.xerces.jaxp.SAXParserFactoryImpl.newSAXParserImpl(SAXParserFactoryImpl.java:112)
[servicegen] at weblogic.apache.xerces.jaxp.SAXParserFactoryImpl.setFeature(SAXParserFactoryImpl.java:140)
[servicegen] at weblogic.xml.jaxp.WebLogicSAXParserFactory.setFeature(WebLogicSAXParserFactory.java:56)
[servicegen] weblogic.utils.AssertionError: ***** ASSERTION FAILED *****[ Cannot invoke boolean constructor of processor ] - with nested exception:
[servicegen] [java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException - with target exception:
[servicegen] [weblogic.utils.AssertionError: ***** ASSERTION FAILED ***** - with nested exception:
[servicegen] [java.lang.ClassCastException]]]
Based on some research this appears to be an issue with WLS getting a parser that it cannot handle. Given that the version of ant included with 8.1sp3 is pretty old, is there a way to use newer versions? I'm giving up for now on macrodef's but would, as a general statement, like to keep up with new tools as they become available. I'd like to not be dependent on turning a battleship to incorporate 15 months of development work (the time between now and the release of ant 1.5.3 as included with 8.1sp3).
Thanks for any information.

Answer 1

Had some problems like this before. Even thought I cannot offer specific advice as to how to fix this. If you do this, it could help.
Encountered a problem in eclipse while using WLS servicegen ANT task and, of course, the optional FTP task. I am using Eclipse Version: 3.0.0 Build id: 200406192000. With this comes ANT 1.6.1 standard. In order to get servicegen ANT task working I had to include the weblogic.jar in the ANT Classpath. Ofcourse this had another side effect, the FTP task that used to work earlier quit working. I still havent figured out the root cause of the problem but inorder to get around I did the following. To fix this, I added a new Task called FTP, I picked the c:\....\lib\ant-commons-net.jar in the location. The name I retained it as ftp. In the left page, I nagivated down to the lead of the tree [root]/->org->apache->...->net and in the right pane, I chose FTP. After this step when I ran I ran into an odd error Buildfile: C:\Work\JSSE-EJB.xml BUILD FAILED: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/oroinc/net/ftp/FTP Total time: 78 milliseconds I was under the impression that this is a legacy component and that the new version of the net component has org.apache....FTP structure. I am really not sure where, but to fix the issue, I had to get the NetComponents.jar from http://www.savarese.org/downloads/NetComponents/ and included it in the classpath. After this step, presto, servicegen task works fine with FTP task. However, I cannot imagine doing this for all the optional tasks. But for now there is a winding work around.