What is a Build Tool?

A build tool is a programming tool which is used to build a new version of a

program. It automates the creation of an executable application from any source
code.

What is Apache Ant?

Apache Ant is a Java-based command-line tool for building Java applications with
the full portability of pure Java code. It allows developers to adopt agile
principles and test-driven development to automate the repetitive development tasks
like generating documentation, etc. Ant is an acronym for Another Neat Tool.

In this Apache ANT tutorial for beginners, you will learn:

What is Apache Ant?

What is the Apache Ant Build Tool?
What is Apache Ant Build tool used for?
History of Apache Ant
Features of Apache Ant
How to Install and Configure Apache Ant on Windows
Example of Apache ANT
ANT Project Structure
Best practices of Using Apache Ant
Advantages of Using Apache Ant
What is Apache Ant Build tool used for?
Here, are important pros/benefits of using the Build tool:

Build tool allows you to automate specific repetitive tasks for like compiling the
source code, running software tests, and creating files for the software
deployment.
Build tools mostly run without a graphical user interface.
Helps you to convert source code into executable code
Offers an option to recompile a file only if necessary
Allows you to compile numbers of files in a relatively short time
Two widely popular build tools used by Java developers are Apache Maven and Ant.
Apache Ant
Apache Ant
History of Apache Ant
Now in this Apache ANT tutorial, we will learn about the history of Apache Ant
Build Tool.

Here are important historical landmarks from the Apache Ant tool:

James Duncan Davidson created an Ant on July 2000.

It was initially used to build Tomcat and was comes as an in-built product of
Tomcat distribution kit.
In May 2014, Apache Ant version 1.9.4 released with many advanced features.
It’s the latest version is 1.10.3 which was released on March 2018.
Features of Apache Ant
Here, are essential features of Apache Ant:

It’s an open-source project.

Allow you to run builds on both Windows and UNIX/Linux systems.
You only require JVM as It runs anywhere when JVM is available.
Offers an extensive range of predefined tasks
Helps you to copy from one location to another.
Offers interface to develop custom tasks.
Allows you to invoke from the command line which can easily integrate with free and
commercial IDEs.
Allows you to deploy the binaries to the test server
Offers Extensible Architecture
Offers Backward Compatibility
How to Install and Configure Apache Ant on Windows
Now in this Apache ANT tutorial, we will learn the process of installing Apache Ant
on Windows.

We are assuming that you have already downloaded and installed the Java Development
Kit (JDK) into your computer. Make sure that the JAVA_HOME environment variable is
set to the folder where your JDK is installed. Follow the below steps for
installing Ant:

Step 1) Download the binaries.

Download the binaries from https://ant.apache.org/bindownload.cgi

Download the binaries

Step 2) Unzip Files.
Unzip this zip file to a convenient location c:\folder. Using Winzip, WinRAR, 7-
zip, or similar tools.

Unzip Files
Step 3) Create an environment variable.
Create an environment variable for “ANT_HOME” and assign the value of a variable to
the location of the Ant folder.

Right-click on This PC icon.

Click on Properties
Environment variable
Step 4) Go to system settings.
Click on “Advanced system settings”.

Advanced system settings

Step 5) On system properties,
Click on “Advanced” tab.

Advanced tab
Step 6) Find out environment variables.
Click on “Environment variables…” button.

Environment variables
Step 7) Create new user.
Click on “New” to create a new user variable.

Create new user

Step 8) Enter user details.
Enter new user variable details

Enter variable name as ANT_HOME.

Enter variable value as C:\apache-ant-1.9.14-bin\apache-ant-1.9.14\bin.
Click on “OK” button.
Enter user details
Step 9) User created.
Click on “OK” button.

User created
Step 10) Close the screen.
Click on “OK” to close the screen.

Close the screen

You can verify for the successful Ant installation by typing “ant -version” command
in the command prompt.

You will see the following screen:

Verify installation
Example of Apache ANT
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<project>
<target name="hello">
<echo>Hello, World</echo> </target>
</project>
Let’s save this as “buildl.xml”

Goto CMD and move to the dir where you have put the simplebuild.xml
Now write, ant-file buildl.xml Hello_World_Target. This should show us Hello World.
ANT Project Structure
ANT Project Structure
ANT Project Structure

Every build will contain three nodes:

Project
Target
Task
Project:
Everything inside the build file in Apache ANT is under a project.

Attributes:

Name The name of a project.

Basedir: This is the directory from where all the paths will be calculated. This
can be overridden by using “basedir” property.
Default: Helps you to define the default target for this project. If no target is
given, then it will execute the “default.”
Target:
Target is a set of tasks, which is defined to get a specific state for the build
process.

Attributes:

Name: Nate of the target (required)

Description: Description of the target
Depends: Which target this current target depend upon.
If: Executes the target only if a value is set for a target property
Unless: Executes the target if the property value is not set
Tasks:
It’s a piece of code which can be executed. Task have multiple argument or
attributes.

The general method pattern to write task is:

<name attribute1="value" attribute2="value2"…/>

You can either use the build in a task, or you can build your own task.

Best practices of Using Apache Ant

Here, are some best practices to use Apache Ant.

You should automate build numbering using property files.

Implementing a configurable build with the help of default and build property
files. These files allow you to store properties that define the data for your
build process, like compiler version and optimization settings, etc.
You can reuse prebuilt libraries using library property files.
Advantages of Using Apache Ant
Here are pros/ benefits of using Apache Ant:

It is Ant. It is platform-neutral, so it helps you to manage platform-centric

properties such as file separators.
Ant allows you to perform platform-specific tasks like modifying the modified time
of a file using ‘touch’ command.
Ant scripts are written using plain XML so If you are already familiar with XML,
you will able to learn Ant quickly.
Ant offers a big list of predefined tasks.
It offers an interface to developing customize tasks.
You can easily invoke ant from the command line. It allows you to integrate with
free and commercial IDEs.
You need JVM: It runs anywhere JVM is available.
Apache Ant is an open-source library which allows users to access the source code
and reproduce it.
Apache Ant is a cross-platform tool which allows you to handle Java classpath and
file directory structure in an affordable manner.
Apache Ant is easily extensible using Java and other programming languages.
Apache Ant offers built-in support for J2EE development like EJB compilation and
packaging.
You can use it for the small personal project which can also be used in a large
software project or on their website.