Installing ANT on Windows and or Mac OS X

I'm gonna try and cover the two OS's here so be kind.

First things first, goto http://ant.apache.org/bindownload.cgi and download the appropriate archive (zip) file: apache-ant-[VERSION NUMBER HERE]-bin.zip

Then for Windows: Extract the .zip to c:\ant. From the command line set the following environment variables:

set ANT_HOME=c:\ant
set JAVA_HOME=c:\jdk-1.5.0.05
set PATH=%PATH%;%ANT_HOME%\bin
For Mac: Unpack the zip file to /usr/local/ant/. Then from the command line set the following environment variables:
export ANT_HOME=/usr/local/ant
export PATH=${PATH}:${ANT_HOME}/bin

Now open up the Terminal(Mac)/Command line(Win) and just type "ANT" and hit return. You should see:

Buildfile: build.xml does not exist!
Build failed

To demonstrate calling a file we're gonna create a quick build.xml. Create a new text file, enter the following bit of XML and save it as build.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project name="myProject" default="runEcho" basedir=".">
   <target name="runEcho">
      <!-- Simply echo's a message to the screen -->
      <echo message="Is anybody out there"/>
   </target>
</project>

If you are on Windows save this file to the root of c:\ and from the command line run the following

ant -buildfile c:\build.xml

If you are on Mac then just save this to the desktop and from the Terminal run:
ant -buildfile ~/desktop/build.xml
You should now see
Buildfile: {PATH_TO_YOU_BUILD_FILE}build.xml

runEcho:
[echo] Is anybody out there

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 0 seconds

That's pretty much it, from here you you are now set to run Ant from the Terminal/Command line so in theory you should be able to schedule tasks etc!

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3585 Views | Posted At : June 27, 2007 4:23 PM | Posted By : Andy Jarrett
Related Categories: Ant, Eclipse, Rough Guide

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Big Mad Kev's Gravatar Andy?............. Go celebrate mate and leave this nerdy stuff alone for a while ;)
# Posted By Big Mad Kev | 6/28/07 6:14 AM
Andy J's Gravatar Don't worry Kev, the alcohol hasn't stopped .. i'm just slowly building up to prepare my body for some abusive drinking come the weekend
# Posted By Andy J | 6/28/07 9:04 AM
Jim Priest's Gravatar If he was a real nerd he would have proposed with a build.xml file :) I'll add this to my wiki!
# Posted By Jim Priest | 6/28/07 12:18 PM
tony petruzzi's Gravatar In my nerd days, I once asked my girlfriend on a date using the Wizard from Microsoft Agent :P

http://www.microsoft.com/msagent/default.asp
# Posted By tony petruzzi | 6/28/07 12:59 PM
Big Mad Kev's Gravatar If Andy was a real nerd he wouldn't be able to approach a girl to start with ;)
# Posted By Big Mad Kev | 6/28/07 1:04 PM
Andy J's Gravatar I did consider building a CFC that would except her answer as a boolean and only return it to me as a true value ... no chance of unexpected bugs then
# Posted By Andy J | 6/28/07 1:38 PM
Critter's Gravatar Anyone know if you can pass in attributes to the build.xml file?
# Posted By Critter | 6/29/07 10:05 AM
Andy J's Gravatar @Critter, easier to explain in a post :o)
http://www.andyjarrett.co.uk/andy/blog/index.cfm/2...
# Posted By Andy J | 6/29/07 10:51 AM
Critter's Gravatar aye.

danke
# Posted By Critter | 6/29/07 11:57 AM
Mason Simon's Gravatar Here's a windows installer for Ant that I made: http://code.google.com/p/winant/
I hope it's useful, and let me know if you'd like to develop it further.
# Posted By Mason Simon | 7/7/07 7:36 AM
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