Resources

FAQs

At Ant's website

Starting with the release of Ant 1.4 the Ant's FAQ is bundled with the distribution, the most recent version can always be found at the website.

FAQ:	http://ant.apache.org/faq.html

jGuru

jGuru hosts an interactive Ant discussion forum and FAQ system

Forum:	http://www.jguru.com/forums/home.jsp?topic=Ant
FAQ:	http://www.jguru.com/faq/home.jsp?topic=Ant

FAQ about Borland Application Server tasks

Benoit Moussaud, the original author of the Borland Application Server specific EJB tasks has put together a FAQ for this specific subtask.

FAQ:	http://www.moussaud.org/ejbjar.html

WIKIs

Apache

The ASF provides a Wiki farm for Apache projects.

Main page:	Apache Wiki Farm
Ant Wiki:	Ant Wiki

Books

Listed by descending publication date.

Extreme Programming with Ant

This book shows how to implement an XP project using Ant 1.5.3, and many other 3rd party tools. Covers:

The fundamentals of Ant: concepts, core and optional tasks
How to write custom Ant components, including custom Tasks, Loggers, Listeners, Input Handlers, Selectors, Filters, Mappers and Data Types
Mitigating risks by creating spike tests with Ant buildfiles
Add CVS version control and testing with JUnit
Automate nightly builds and reporting
Deploy applications dynamically using XDoclet
Enforcing Code Standards with Jalopy, PMD, CheckStyle, iContract, JDepend
Using Remote Ant (Rant) and CruiseControl
Generating project documentation
Adapting an XP process for use by other teams or across an enterprise
Custom Task examples to generating UML diagrams, creating reports and metrics on-the-fly
Follows a case-study of a team that implements an XP Project

Authors:	Glenn Niemeyer and Jeremy Poteet
URL:	http://www.sams.com/catalog/product.asp?product_id=%7BFB825A48-BC04-4C55-BD8C-DF93C6BBF920%7D

Ant. Das Java-Build-Tool in der Praxis

A German language book on Ant that covers Ant 1.5. This is the original description:

        Das Build-Tool Ant ist das Open-Source-Werkzeug, das den Entwicklungsprozess einer Java-
        oder J2EE-Anwendung wesentlich vereinfacht. Gesteuert durch XML-basierte Skripte fï¿½hrt es
        nahezu alle Aufgaben aus, die nach dem Kodieren einer Anwendung anfallen.

Some topics:

creating archives (zip, jar)
call the java compiler
edit property files
file operation
source code control systems

Authors:	Bernd Matzke
URL:	http://www.addison-wesley.de/main/main.asp?page=home/bookdetails&ProductID=13459

Java Development with Ant

Covers Ant 1.5, including:

The new Ant 1.5 features
Ant's datatypes and property handling
JUnit testing and reporting
Continuous integration techniques
XDoclet for attribute-oriented programming
EJB generation, building, and packaging
Writing and testing native code
Building Web Services with Apache Axis
Deploying your system to multiple remote servers
Using and writing
- Loggers
- Listeners
- Selectors
- Custom tasks

Authors:	Erik Hatcher and Steve Loughran
URL:	http://www.manning.com/antbook/

Ant: The Definitive Guide

Covers Ant release 1.4.1.

Authors:	Jesse E. Tilly and Eric M. Burke
URL:	http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/anttdg/

Ant. Kurz und Gut.

A German language short reference for Ant that covers Ant 1.4. This is the original description:

  Ant kurz & gut enthält eine vollständige Referenz der Built-in Tasks
  und ihrer jeweiligen Attribute sowie kurze Beispiele für ihre Verwendung.
  Daneben bietet das Buch eine knappe Einführung in die Arbeit mit Ant und
  eine Erläuterung der Ant-Basiselemente (Projekte, Properties, Targets und Tasks).
  Behandelt werden außerdem grundlegende Konzepte wie Filesets, Patternsets und
  Pfadstrukturen, das Schreiben eigener Tasks, die Aufruf-Syntax und Optional Tasks.

Author:	Stefan Edlich
URL:	http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3897212412/

Java Tools for eXtreme Programming

This book covers the following XP subjects:

Automated unit and functional testing
Continuous integration through build and deployment automation
The value of refactoring and continuous integration
How Ant, JUnit, JUnitPerf, Cactus, HTTPUnit, and JMeter can be used to achieve the goals of the XP methodology

Authors:	Richard Hightower and Nicholas Lesiecki
URL:	http://www.wiley.com/cda/product/0,,047120708X,00.html

Articles and Presentations

The following sections list articles and presentations written about Apache Ant. If you've written something that should be included, please post it to one of the mailing lists.

Articles

Extending Ant Input Abilities

The contents of this document is the following:

Section 2 provides a simple example how InputHandlers are created,
Section 3 develops an inputhandler that masks the passwords typed on the command line,
Section 4 gives two handlers, whose input is typed in graphical components,
Section 5 extends Input task so that we can use dierent input handlers on different uses of <input>,
Section 6 describes a problem found while writing this document,
Section 7 summarizes some dark corners the author do not understand.

Author:	Ivan Ivanov
URL:	https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=103509 (Download ZIP+PDF from Sourceforge)

Keep the Ant, Hold the XML

Key G. Gauthier talks about writing "buildfiles" in Java.

Author:	Key G. Gauthier
URL:	http://www.ftponline.com/javapro/2004_06/magazine/features/kgauthier/

Ant 1.6 for Task Writers

This article talks about XML namespace handling, Ant libraries and the newly introduced type polymorphism.

Author:	Stefan Bodewig
URL:	http://otn.oracle.com/pub/articles/bodewig_taskwriters.html

Managing Build Complexity with Apache Ant 1.6

As Apache Ant is applied to increasingly difficult tasks, its users are creating more complex and less legible build files. This is due, in part, to the limited tools for decomposition and code reuse within previous versions of Ant.

Author:	Geoffrey Wiseman
URL:	http://www.sys-con.com/story/?storyid=45078&DE=1

New Ant 1.6 Features for Big Projects

This article describes the <macrodef>, <import> and <subant> tasks in detail and shows how they help in building bigger systems.

Author:	Stefan Bodewig
URL:	http://otn.oracle.com/pub/articles/bodewig_ant1.6.html

Programmieren für Ant

This article describes the main topics of programming your own tasks. Description is done on five examples.

This article is written in German and published in Java-Spektrum 5/2004.

Author:	Bernd Matzke
URL:	http://www.sigs-datacom.de/sd/news/document?PID=216

Ant in Anger: Using Ant in a Production Development System

This document describes strategies and some basic examples of how to use Ant in larger team development projects.

Author:	Steve Loughran
URL:	http://ant.apache.org/ant_in_anger.html

Ant Task Guidelines

This document describes how to write custom Ant tasks, and how to submit them to potentially be included in Ant.

Author:	Steve Loughran
URL:	http://ant.apache.org/ant_task_guidelines.html

Build a Better Robot with Ant

This article describes the gory details of writing custom Ant tasks.

Author:	Erik Hatcher
URL:	http://www.fawcette.com/javapro/2003_02/magazine/features/ehatcher/l

Automating the build and test process

This article demonstrates an approach to the automated build and test process. Working with Ant 1.3 and the JUnit test framework, it shows how to automate a process that captures pertinent information about each test suite run, generates an attractive report, and e-mails the report.

Author:	Erik Hatcher
URL:	http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-junitmail/

Incremental development with Ant and JUnit

This article explores the benefits of unit testing with Ant and JUnit, detailing how to develop automated unit tests and integrate them into your build process.

Author:	Malcolm Davis
URL:	http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/j-ant/?dwzone=java

Automate your build process using Java and Ant

This article provides an introduction to using Ant with some basic examples and by highlighting some of the important tasks.

Author:	Michael Cymerman
URL:	http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-10-2000/jw-1020-ant.html

Short tutorial in Cactus' (formerly J2EEUnit) documentation

There is a short tutorial on how to use Ant in Cactus' documentation. It has a slant towards build files that will be used with Cactus.

Author:	Cactus development team
URL:	http://jakarta.apache.org/cactus/howto_ant_primer.html

Developing custom Ant tasks with VisualAge for Java

This article outlines how to integrate Ant into VisualAge for Java, and how to write and debug custom tasks using the IDE and the integrated debugger.

Author:	Glenn McAllister
URL:	http://www7.software.ibm.com/vad.nsf/data/document2366?OpenDocument&p=1&BCT=1&Footer=1

Automated builds with VisualAge for Java and Ant

This article shows how you can perform command line builds with a VisualAge for Java repository.

Author:	Glenn McAllister
URL:	http://www7.software.ibm.com/vad.nsf/Data/Document4366?OpenDocument&p=1&BCT=3&Footer=1

Ant: A Build Tool from the Jakarta Project

This article is from the "Best Practices" section of Sun's Dot-Com Builder Site.

Author:	Laura Geele Wang
URL:	http://dcb.sun.com/practices/profiles/ant.jsp

Making a Mountain Out of an Anthill

This article is from the June 2001 issue of the Java Developer' Journal. You need to be a registered JDJ subscriber to view this article.

Author:	Neal Ford
URL:	http://www.sys-con.com/java/archivesa.cfm?volume=06&issue=06

Using Ant and Weblogic EJBs

This article describes how to use Ant to create Weblogic EJBs, and some workarounds for issues you may encounter.

Author:	Jesse E. Tilly
URL:	http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2001/06/25/antejb.html

Using JavaScript with Ant

A tutorial about using JavaScript and XSLT with Ant.

Author:	Dylan Schiemann
URL:	http://www.sitepen.com/ant/javascript.html

Building with Ant

Series of articles that describe a framework for web application development based on Ant and JUnit.

Author:	Alex Chaffee
URL:	Introduction: http://softwaredev.earthweb.com/sdtech/article/0,,12065_989631,00.html Directory Structure: http://softwaredev.earthweb.com/sdtech/article/0,,12082_994991,00.html Deployment and Distribution: http://softwaredev.earthweb.com/sdtech/article/0,,12077_998241,00.html

Developing with JAXB and Ant

Series of articles that shows how to use Ant together with the Java API for XML Binding (JAXB).

Author:	Joseph Shelby
URL:	http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2002/03/06/jaxant1.html http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2002/03/13/jaxbant2.html

Presentations

Ant Build Tool

A PowerPoint presentation on Ant 1.2. It provides a basic overview of Ant's capabilities.

Author:	Patrick Chanezon
URL:	http://people.netscape.com/chanezon/tech/ant/ant_preso.ppt

Ant

A detailed Ant 1.3 PowerPoint presentation, made at the St. Louis Java Users Group meeting in March 2001. Includes a detailed build file and basic descriptions of all the built in and optional tasks. Updated for Ant 1.4 in October 2001. Available in PDF format now.

Author:	Mark Volkmann
URL:	http://www.ociweb.com/jnb/files/Ant.pdf

Modern Development Crises

This presentation is an overview of the current state of software development today. There are a couple of slides that briefly cover Ant.

Author:	Steve Loughran
URL:	http://www.iseran.com/Steve/modern_development_processes.html

When Web Services Go Bad

A presentation from the Web Services DevCon in March 2002.

Author:	Steve Loughran
URL:	http://www.iseran.com/Steve/papers/when_web_services_go_bad.html