[Ant] How the tasks are called in Ant?

In Ant, we use tasks like javac, java , jar, war and etc to do the build work. As for each specific task, it is the subclass of Task. class Task  includes abstract method execute(). and its child classes must implement this method.

public abstract class Task extends ProjectComponent {
    public void execute() throws BuildException {
    }
}

class DispatchUtils is used by Ant to run the task's execute method on the basis of Java Reflect API. Moreover, tasks can also be adapted into interface Dispatchable to call more actions by parameters.

public interface Dispatchable {
    /**
     * Get the name of the parameter.
     * @return the name of the parameter that contains the name of the method.
     */
    String getActionParameterName();
}

Let us have a glimpse of the code statements in DispatchUtils class.

public class DispatchUtils {
    /**
     * Determines and Executes the action method for the task.
     * @param task the task to execute.
     * @throws BuildException on error.
     */
    public static final void execute(Object task) throws BuildException {
        String methodName = "execute";
        Dispatchable dispatchable = null;
        try {
            if (task instanceof Dispatchable) {
                dispatchable = (Dispatchable) task;
            } else if (task instanceof UnknownElement) {
                UnknownElement ue = (UnknownElement) task;
                Object realThing = ue.getRealThing();
                if (realThing != null
                    && realThing instanceof Dispatchable
                    && realThing instanceof Task) {
                    dispatchable = (Dispatchable) realThing;
                }
            }
            if (dispatchable != null) {
                String mName = null;
                try {
                    final String name = dispatchable.getActionParameterName();
                    if (name != null && name.trim().length() > 0) {
                        mName = "get" + name.trim().substring(0, 1).toUpperCase();
                        if (name.length() > 1) {
                            mName += name.substring(1);
                        }
                        final Class c = dispatchable.getClass();
                        final Method actionM = c.getMethod(mName, new Class[0]);
                        if (actionM != null) {
                            final Object o = actionM.invoke(dispatchable, (Object[]) null);
                            if (o != null) {
                                final String s = o.toString();
                                if (s != null && s.trim().length() > 0) {
                                    methodName = s.trim();
                                    Method executeM = null;
                                    executeM = dispatchable.getClass().getMethod(
                                        methodName, new Class[0]);
                                    if (executeM == null) {
                                        throw new BuildException(
                                            "No public " + methodName + "() in "
                                            + dispatchable.getClass());
                                    }
                                    executeM.invoke(dispatchable, (Object[]) null);
                                    if (task instanceof UnknownElement) {
                                        ((UnknownElement) task).setRealThing(null);
                                    }
                                } else {
                                    throw new BuildException(
                                        "Dispatchable Task attribute '" + name.trim()
                                        + "' not set or value is empty.");
                                }
                            } else {
                                    throw new BuildException(
                                        "Dispatchable Task attribute '" + name.trim()
                                        + "' not set or value is empty.");
                            }
                        }
                    } else {
                        throw new BuildException(
                            "Action Parameter Name must not be empty for Dispatchable Task.");
                    }
                } catch (NoSuchMethodException nsme) {
                    throw new BuildException("No public " + mName + "() in " + task.getClass());
                }
            } else {
                Method executeM = null;
                executeM = task.getClass().getMethod(methodName, new Class[0]);
                if (executeM == null) {
                    throw new BuildException("No public " + methodName + "() in "
                        + task.getClass());
                }
                executeM.invoke(task, (Object[]) null);
                if (task instanceof UnknownElement) {
                    ((UnknownElement) task).setRealThing(null);
                }
            }
        } catch (InvocationTargetException ie) {
            Throwable t = ie.getTargetException();
            if (t instanceof BuildException) {
                throw ((BuildException) t);
            } else {
                throw new BuildException(t);
            }
        } catch (NoSuchMethodException e) {
            throw new BuildException(e);
        } catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
            throw new BuildException(e);
        }
    }
}