Using the Task

The task shown [above] must somehow get called by Phing. Therefore it must be made available to Phing so that the buildfile parser is aware a correlating XML element and it's parameters. Have a look at the minimalistic buildfile example given in [the buildfile below] that does exactly this.

<?xml version="1.0" ?>

<project name="test" basedir="." default="test.myecho">
    <taskdef name="myecho" classname="phing.tasks.my.MyEchoTask" />

    <target name="test.myecho">
      <myecho message="Hello World" />
    </target>
</project>

Besides the XML document prolog and the shell elements that are required to properly execute the task (project, target) you'll find the <taskdef> element (line 4) that properly registers your custom task to Phing. For a detailed synopsis of the taskdef element see the [description of this task].

Now, as we have registered the task by assigning a name and the worker class ([see source code above]) it is ready for usage within the <target> context (line 8). You see that we pass the message that our task should echo to the screen via an XML attribute called "message".