Apache Ant8.9

Apache Ant

'Apache Ant' (or simply Ant) is an XML-based build scripting language used heavily by the Open Source community. Ant automates tasks such as compiling source code, building deployment packages and automatically checking dependencies of what items need to be updated in a build set.

Background

This wikibook was based on a presentation created by Dan McCreary for the Minnesota Java Open Source User Group. Dan felt strongly that a gentle introduction to Ant was necessary for new people to easily learn Ant. The existing Ant documentation, although useful for advanced Ant users, did not meet the needs of most beginners. For example in the Apache documentation, advanced concepts such as token filters were placed directly in the introduction for beginners. The introductory material also did not contain full examples with complete sample build files and expected output. Something else was needed. At the same time the introductory material assumed that the reader was familiar with XML. This material covers some of the material you need to know about XML to build Ant scripts.

This Wikibook is also designed to work with other XML-related programming wikibooks such as XML Schema and XForms.

Book Structure

This document has an introduction page for people just getting started. Mostly hello world information to get a flavor for what Ant is and how it is used. At the end there are six sections:

Introduction

Background - History and motivation for Apache AntAdoption - How and why organizations should adopt Apache AntXML Summary - A short review of XML syntax for people that are not familiar with XML. This section can easily be skipped by users that already know about XML file structure.Getting Started

Installation How to download and install Apache AntTesting How to test Apache AntHello World How to run a small ant program that prints "Hello World!"Core Concepts - Core Terms and Concepts useful to Ant developersTerminology - Terminology (projects, targets and tasks)Build File Structure- The structure of a build fileProperty Using PropertiesDepends Setting up DependenciesFileset Using FilesetBest Practices

Ant Best Practices - Best practices such as how to set up an Ant fileStandard Targets - A list of standard targets such as init and cleanLocal Property Files - how to use a local property fileLocal File Systems - removing local file system dependenciesExamples

Ant Cookbook - A set of small complete working example programs that demonstrate examples of how to use Apache AntDepends - shows how to use the targets depends attributeProperty - shows how to use an Ant propertyFileset - shows how to use an Ant filesetAnt Tasks that Manipulate XML

XML - how Ant can be used to process XML documents

XMLwellformed - how to use Apache ant to check an XML file for well formednessXMLvalidate - how to use Apache ant to validate an XML file agains an XML SchemaXSLT - how to use Apache ant to run an XML transformRunning Saxon - how to use Apache ant to run SaxonPassing Parameters to XSLT - How to pass parameters to an XSLT transform from Apache AntXQuery - Using XQuery to transform XML documentsAnt Tasks that Manipulate eXist

Store XML data - an ant task that will store collection into eXistReindex a Collection - an ant task that can reindex an eXist collectionExecute an XQuery - a sample ant task to execute an XQueryCreating a .xar file - a sample ant task to create an XML archive file for packing modules or appsReferences

References - where to get more information on Apache AntSee Also

XForms - how to use XForms to create and update XML files to create web form "front-ends" to your Ant scriptsXQuery - how to use XQuery to generate and update your Ant build files