Using ANT with Flex, building dependent target fails - apache-flex

Question

I have a flex project called framework and another one called commons. Commons depends on framework.
Build script for framework :
<project name="imanager-framework" basedir=".">
<property name="src" location="src"/>
<property name="dist" location="dist"/>
<property name="FLEX_HOME" value="C:/Program Files (x86)/Adobe/Adobe Flash Builder 4.5/sdks/4.6.0"/>
<taskdef resource="flexTasks.tasks" classpath="${basedir}/libs/flexTasksFlash4.jar"/>
<target name="clean">
<delete dir="${dist}"/>
</target>
<target name="dist">
<echo>src dir: ${src}</echo>
<mkdir dir="${dist}"/>
<compc output="${dist}/${ant.project.name}.swc">
<source-path path-element="src" />
<library-path dir="libs" includes="*.swc" append="true"/>
<include-sources dir="${src}" includes="*" />
</compc>
</target>
</project>
Build script for commons :
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project name="imanager-commons" basedir=".">
<property name="src" location="src"/>
<property name="dist" location="dist"/>
<property name="FLEX_HOME" value="C:/Program Files (x86)/Adobe/Adobe Flash Builder 4.5/sdks/4.6.0"/>
<taskdef resource="flexTasks.tasks" classpath="${basedir}/libs/flexTasksFlash4.jar"/>
<target name="clean">
<delete dir="${dist}"/>
</target>
<target name="init">
<echo>Running Target: init</echo>
<echo>Running ant dist on framework</echo>
<!-- THIS PART FAILS --> <ant dir="../framework/" target="dist" inheritall="false"/>
<copy file="../framework/dist/imanager-framework.swc" todir="libs"/>
</target>
<target name="dist" depends="init">
<mkdir dir="${dist}"/>
<compc output="${dist}/${ant.project.name}.swc">
<source-path path-element="src" />
<library-path dir="libs" includes="*.swc" append="true"/>
<include-sources dir="${src}" includes="*" />
</compc>
</target>
</project>
Calling <ant> from the commons build file gives me spurious compile errors about bad imports and classes not being found. But running framework's build separately doesn't give any errors.
Here's some of the output I get
Buildfile: E:\flexspace\imanager\commons\build.xml
init:
[echo] Running Target: init
[echo] Running ant dist on framework
Trying to override old definition of task asdoc
Trying to override old definition of task compc
Trying to override old definition of task mxmlc
Trying to override old definition of task html-wrapper
dist:
[echo] src dir: E:\flexspace\imanager\framework\src
[compc] Loading configuration file C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder 4.5\sdks\4.6.0\frameworks\flex-config.xml
...some warnings from my code here...
[compc] E:\flexspace\imanager\framework\src\com\iwobanas\controls\dataGridClasses\MDataGridColumn.as(72): col: 88 Error: Access of undefined property WildcardFilterEditor in package com.iwobanas.controls.dataGridClasses.filterEditors.
[compc] filterEditor = new ClassFactory(com.iwobanas.controls.dataGridClasses.filterEditors.WildcardFilterEditor);
[compc] ^
[compc] E:\flexspace\imanager\framework\src\com\iwobanas\controls\dataGridClasses\MDataGridColumn.as(24): col: 60 Error: Definition com.iwobanas.controls.dataGridClasses.filterEditors:WildcardFilterEditor could not be found.
[compc] import com.iwobanas.controls.dataGridClasses.filterEditors.WildcardFilterEditor;
[compc] ^
[compc] E:\flexspace\imanager\framework\src\org\syspire\erp\component\tooltip\components\ExtendedToolTip.as(3): col: 48 Error: Definition org.syspire.erp.component.tooltip.skins:ExtendedToolTipSkin could not be found.
[compc] import org.syspire.erp.component.tooltip.skins.ExtendedToolTipSkin;
[compc] ^
[compc] E:\flexspace\imanager\framework\src\org\astrika\shared\components\gridSearch\view\SearchDatePopup.mxml(14): Error: Type was not found or was not a compile-time constant: SearchDateView.
[compc] <gridSearch:SearchDateView id="searchDateView"/>
...similar errors...
BUILD FAILED
E:\flexspace\imanager\commons\build.xml:17: The following error occurred while executing this line:
E:\flexspace\imanager\framework\build.xml:17: compc task failed
Total time: 4 seconds
What's going wrong here?
Thanks
EDIT
As requested, here are the config dumps:
Framework build using Flash Builder: http://pastebin.com/kLai6j7X
Framework build using ANT: http://pastebin.com/FGHBAXZX
Framework build called from commons using ANT: (This is same as the previous dump)
UPDATE
I ended up just changing the structure of my build files to eliminate the <ant> call. I now how one build.xml for all the projects, will all targets in it. Not pretty, but it works for me.

Answer 1

It's a bit off-topic but I found Ant does bad at managing the build of Flex projects, especially when you have dependencies.
Have you considered using Maven with FlexMojos ? Adobe released a series of articles about this great tool. Much recommended !

Answer 2

One thing you can definitely try is to move the taskdef into target, at least that'll get rid of "Trying to override old definition of task" warning.