- Apache ANT Tutorial
- ANT - Home
- ANT - Introduction
- ANT - Environment Setup
- ANT - Build Files
- ANT - Property Task
- ANT - Property Files
- ANT - Data Types
- ANT - Building Projects
- ANT - Build Documentation
- ANT - Creating JAR files
- ANT - Create WAR Files
- ANT - Packaging Applications
- ANT - Deploying Applications
- ANT - Executing Java code
- ANT - Eclipse Integration
- ANT - JUnit Integration
- ANT - Extending Ant
- Apache ANT Useful Examples
- ANT - Using Token
- ANT - Using Command Line Arguments
- ANT - Using If Else arguments
- ANT - Custom Components
- ANT - Listeners and Loggers
- Apache ANT Resources
- ANT - Quick Guide
- ANT - Useful Resources
- ANT - Discussion
- Selected Reading
- UPSC IAS Exams Notes
- Developer's Best Practices
- Questions and Answers
- Effective Resume Writing
- HR Interview Questions
- Computer Glossary
- Who is Who
Ant - Introduction
ANT stands for Another Neat Tool. It is a Java-based build tool from computer software development company Apache. Before going into the details of Apache Ant, let us first understand why we need a build tool.
Need for a Build Tool
On an average, a developer spends a substantial amount of time doing mundane tasks like build and deployment that include −
Compiling the code
Packaging the binaries
Deploying the binaries to the test server
Testing the changes
Copying the code from one location to another
To automate and simplify the above tasks, Apache Ant is useful. It is an Operating System build and deployment tool that can be executed from the command line.
History of Apache Ant
Ant was created by software developer James Duncan Davidson who is also the original creator of webserver application Tomcat.
Ant was originally used to build Tomcat, and was bundled as a part of Tomcat distribution.
It was born out of the problems and complexities associated with the Apache Make tool.
It was promoted as an independent project in Apache in the year 2000. The latest version of Apache Ant as on October 2021 is 1.10.12.
Features of Apache Ant
The features of Apache Ant are listed below −
It is the most complete Java build and deployment tool available.
It is platform neutral and can handle platform specific properties, such as file separators.
It can be used to perform platform specific tasks such as modifying the modified time of a file using 'touch' command.
Ant scripts are written using plain XML. If you are already familiar with XML, you can learn Ant pretty quickly.
Ant is good at automating complicated repetitive tasks.
Ant comes with a big list of predefined tasks.
Ant provides an interface to develop custom tasks.
Ant can be easily invoked from the command line and it can integrate with free and commercial IDEs.