Notes Ant

Introduction

Install

Running Ant

Structure

Example

Using Ant with Eclipse

Introduction

============

- Ant is like a Makefile. The configuration is called by default as

"build.xml"

- Ant is a Java program.

- Requires xml parsers and Java installed

Reference: http://ant.apache.org/manual/index.html

Install

==========

1. Unpack ANT into a directory eg. c:\ant.

2. Set Env variables:

Windows and OS/2

Assume Ant is installed in c:\ant\. The following sets up the environment:

set ANT_HOME=c:\ant

set JAVA_HOME=c:\jdk1.2.2

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

(Start - > Control Panal -> System -> Advanced ->Env Variables)

Unix (bash)

Assume Ant is installed in /usr/local/ant. The following sets up the environment:

export ANT_HOME=/usr/local/ant

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/jdk-1.2.2

export PATH=${PATH}:${ANT_HOME}/bin

(/etc/profile.d/*.sh)

Running Ant

============

To run:

ant -buildfile

ant -buildfile test.xml -Dbuild=build/classes dist

runs Ant using the test.xml file in the current directory,

on the target called dist, setting the build property to

the value build/classes.

Structure

==========

Structure of build.xml:

attribs: name, default (target), basedir

Children: , ,

attribs: name, depends, if, unless, description

Children: various tasks

Tasks

attribs: id

attribs: name, value, file, location, url, refid, resource,

environment, classpath, classpathref, prefix

Example

========

simple example build file

The following allows ant to make use of local environment variables

Using Ant with Eclipse

=======================

1. Create a new xml in Eclipse, to be the ant build file, eg. build.xml

2. Open the build.xml file with Eclipse editor

3. Edit the xml file, note there is context sensitive help in Eclipse.

4. To run the build.xml: Run As -> Ant Build, then select targets

to be build.