Ant Basic

---

Ant (originally an acronym for Another Neat Tool), is a build tool with special support for the Java programming language but can be used for just about everything. Ant is platform-independent; it is written purely in Java. Ant is particularly good at automating complicated repetitive tasks and thus is well suited for automating

Ant Installation

---

Configuration for Windows Environment

1. Download latest binary zip from http://jakarta.apache.org/ant/.
2. Unzip Binary in any folder, in my end it unzip on c:\
E.g. C:\apache-ant-1.7.0
3. Setting Environment variable: Right Click on My Computer ->Properties->Advanced tab->Environment variable->Create User variable

Variable	Value
ANT_HOME	C:\apache-ant-1.7.0
Path	%JAVA_HOME%\bin; %ANT_HOME%\bin; %ANT_HOME%\lib;

4. on command-line type c:\ant to verify proper configuration

Working with Ant

---

For typical Java Project building By Ant script

1. To create test project here is common folder and file
src: For project source files.
build.xml: ant script for clean/compile/create jar etc.. file
2. add a simple java class HelloWorld.java in src/com/myapp
package com.myapp;

public class HelloWorld {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("Hello World");
}
}
3. By default Ant uses build.xml as the name for a buildfile, so our .\build.xml would be:

<br /> <?xml version="1.0"?><br /> <project name="test" default="compile" basedir="."><br /> <property name="src" value="."/><br /> <property name="build" value="build"/><br /> <target name="init"><br /> <mkdir dir="${build}"/><br /> </target><br /> <target name="compile" depends="init"><br /> <br /> <javac srcdir="${src}" destdir="${build}"/><br /> </target><br /> </project><br /> <br />

Note: plz remove br tag

4. on command promt type c:testprj>ant compile
It will create a new folder named build, having the entire compile file from the source folder

Creating a jar-file

Creating a jar-file is not very difficult. But creating a startable jar-file needs more steps: create a manifest-file containing the start class, creating the target directory and archiving the files.
<br /> <!-- <?xml version="1.0"?><br /> <project name="test" default="compile" basedir="."><br /> <property name="src.dir" value="src"/><br /> <property name="build.dir" value="build"/><br /> <property name="classes.dir" value="${build.dir}/classes"/><br /> <property name="jar.dir" value="${build.dir}/jar"/><br /> <property name="lib.dir" value="lib"/><br /> <property name="main-class” value="myapp.HelloWorld"/><br /> <br /> <path id="classpath"><br /> <fileset dir="${lib.dir}" includes="**/*.jar"/><br /> </path><br /> <br /> <target name="compile"><br /> <mkdir dir="${classes.dir}"/><br /> <javac srcdir="${src.dir}" destdir="${classes.dir}" classpathref="classpath"/><br /> <copy todir="${classes.dir}"><br /> <fileset dir="${src.dir}" excludes="**/*.java"/><br /> </copy><br /> </target><br /> <br /> <target name="jar" depends="init"><br /> <!-- Compile the java code --><br /> <mkdir dir="build/jar"/><br /> <jar destfile="${jar.dir}/HelloWorld.jar" basedir="${classes}"><br /> <manifest><br /> <attribute name="Main-Class" value="${main-class}"/><br /> </manifest><br /> </jar><br /> </target><br /> <target name="run"><br /> <java jar="${jar.dir}/HelloWorld.jar" fork="true"/><br /> </target><br /> </project><br /> <br /> --><br /> <br />

Note: plz remove br tag

Creating a War-file

for typical eclipse web project the folder structure is
testProject
-src : For Project source file
-WebContent
-- WEB-INF
---- lib : For compiled/output files produced (by Ant).
---- web.xml
-- META-INF
-- html/jsp/css/javascript files

to create a ant script add build.xml





<br /> <!-- <?xml version="1.0"?><br /> <br /> <project name="test-prj" basedir="." default="deploy"><br /> <property name="src.dir" value="src"/><br /> <property name="build.dir" value="build"/><br /> <property name="classes.dir" value="${build.dir}/classes"/><br /> <property name="web.dir" value="WebContent"/><br /> <property name="lib.dir" value="${web.dir}/WEB-INF/lib"/><br /> <property name="war.dir" value="warfile"/><br /> <property name="tomcat.dir" value="C:\Server\jakarta-tomcat-5.5.9\webapps"/><br /> <br /> <path id="classpath"><br /> <fileset dir="${lib.dir}" includes="**/*.jar"/><br /> </path><br /> <br /> <target name="clean"><br /> <delete dir="${build.dir}"/><br /> <delete dir="${war.dir}"/><br /> </target><br /> <br /> <target name="compile"><br /> <mkdir dir="${classes.dir}"/><br /> <javac srcdir="${src.dir}" destdir="${classes.dir}" classpathref="classpath"/><br /> <copy todir="${classes.dir}"><br /> <fileset dir="${src.dir}" excludes="**/*.java"/><br /> </copy><br /> </target><br /> <br /> <target name="unpack"><br /> <unwar src="${war.dir}/${ant.project.name}.war" dest="${ant.project.name}" /><br /> </target><br /> <br /> <target name="create"><br /> <mkdir dir="${war.dir}"/><br /> <war destfile="${war.dir}/${ant.project.name}.war" webxml="${web.dir}/WEB-INF/web.xml" update="true"><br /> <classes dir="build\classes"/><br /> <fileset dir="${web.dir}"><br /> <exclude name="WEB-INF/web.xml"/><br /> </fileset><br /> </war><br /> </target><br /> <br /> <target name="copy"><br /> <copy todir="${tomcat.dir}" overwrite="true"><br /> <fileset dir="${war.dir}"><br /> <include name="*.war"/><br /> </fileset><br /> </copy><br /> </target><br /> <br /> <target name="deploy"><br /> <antcall target="clean"/><br /> <antcall target="compile"/><br /> <antcall target="create"/><br /> <antcall target="copy"/><br /> </target><br /> <br /> </project><br /> <br /> <br /> --><br />
Note: plz remove br tag