User:Minooz/Ant

ANT

Apache Website

Manual

Index of Manual/Tasks

JUnit Task

Tutorials

• Eclipse based Tutorial
• Notes from Jordan Anastasiade tutorial

Ant is a Java-based build tool. Instead of a model where it is extended with shell-based commands, ant is extended using Java classes

Instead of writing shell commands, the configuration files are XML-based, calling out a target tree where various tasks get executed.

Installing Ant :

Add the bin directory to your path. Set the ANT_HOME environment variable to the directory where you installed Ant. Assume ant is installed in c:\ant\. The following sets up the environment:

set ANT_HOME=c:\ant

set JAVA_HOME=...

set PATH=%PATH%;%ANT_HOME%\bin

ant buildfiles are written in XML – build.xml. Each buildfile contains one project and at least one (default) target.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- compile java files from all subdirectories -->
  <project name="First" default="build" basedir=".">
    <target name="build" >
      <javac srcdir="."
        debug="false"
        optimize="false"
        includes="**/*.java"
      />
    </target>
  </project>

A project has three attributes: name: the name of the project. default: the default target to use when no target is supplied. basedir: the base directory from which all path calculations are done

Each project defines one or more targets which are a set of task elements you want to execute

When starting ant, you can select which target(s) you want to have executed