Projects / Apache Ant

Apache Ant

Ant is a Java based build tool, similar to make, but with better support for the cross platform issues involved with developing Java applications. Ant is the build tool of choice for all Java projects at Apache and many other Open Source Java projects.

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RSS Recent releases

  •  27 Dec 2010 22:48

    Release Notes: Performance improvements in directory scanning. The XSLT task honors the classpath again (bugrep 49271). The distinction between core tasks and optional tasks is abolished. Numerous bugfixes and improvements as documented in Bugzilla and in WHATSNEW.

    •  08 May 2010 09:42

      Release Notes: New task augmenting allows users to add attributes or nested elements to previously defined references. Numerous bugfixes and improvements were made, as documented in Bugzilla and in the WHATSNEW file.

      •  09 Feb 2010 07:06

        Release Notes: Lexically scoped local properties were added. <import> can now import from any file- or URL-providing resource. Various improvements to the directory scanning code improved scanning performance. There were numerous other bugfixes and improvements.

        •  13 Jan 2010 08:38

          Release Notes: A new top level element, extension-point, allows build files to be extended with custom targets more easily. The "if" and "unless" attributes will be evaluated according to the values of the properties entered if these properties evaluate to true, false, on, or off. Ant now requires Java 1.4 or later. A new task, include, provides an alternative to <import> that should be preferred when you don't want to override any targets. Numerous bugfixes and improvements were made.

          •  09 Jul 2008 17:30

          Release Notes: The main release focus is on fixing bugs and improving performance. Java 6 support has been enhanced, and JavaFX is supported by the script task.

          RSS Recent comments

          11 Jul 2004 21:11 mattryan

          Arguably the Best Build Tool Ever
          I never liked the syntax of GNU makefiles. I used a shell script to build C++ projects from scratch instead of `make`. When I was hired as a Java developer, one of my tasks was to get familiar with the build process since I would be responsible for making any changes to it. So I had to learn about some tool called Ant, which was described to me as `make` for Java. Well I wasn't too thrilled with this idea since I hated `make`. However, within 5 minutes of sitting down with an Ant book and reading sample Ant scripts, I was hooked.

          Ant is the killer Java utility. A must-have for any Java project. It takes a few minutes to create a basic build process using simple XML scripting. Ant shines with it's file set support so you can use wildcards to include or exclude certain files during a process. There are an abundant amount of tasks that can be used in Ant, ranging from FTP, Telnet, E-mail, CVS to JSP, EJB, RMI, and J2EE. Many Java utilities suitable for a build process such as JUnit and JProbe can be used within Ant.

          Ant has really made my job enjoyable!

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