Apache Ant™ Project News

Apache Ant 1.8.1

May 7th, 2010 - Apache Ant 1.8.1 Released

Apache Ant 1.8.1 is now available for download as source or binary (with and without dependencies) from http://ant.apache.org/bindownload.cgi.

Key features of the 1.8.1 release are

• new task augment allows to add attributes or nested elements to previously defined references
• numerous bug fixes and improvements as documented in Bugzilla and in WHATSNEW

Apache Ant 1.8.0

Februrary 8th, 2010 - Apache Ant 1.8.0 Released

Key features of the 1.8.0 release are

• Lexically scoped local properties, i.e. properties that are only defined inside a target, sequential block or similar environment. This is very useful inside of <macrodef>s where a macro can now define a temporary property that will disappear once the task has finished.
• <import> can now import from any file- or URL-providing resource - this includes <javaresource>. This means <import> can read build file snippets from JARs or fixed server URLs. There are several other improvements in the area of import.
• Various improvements to the directory scanning code that help with symbolic link cycles (as can be found on MacOS X Java installations for example) and improve scanning performance. For big directory trees the improvement is dramatic.
• The way developers can extend Ant's property expansion algorithm has been rewritten (breaking the older API) to be easier to use and be more powerful. The whole local properties mechanism is implemented using that API and could be implemented in a separate library without changes in Ant's core. Things like the yet-to-be-released props Antlib can now provide often required "scripty" fuctions without touching Ant itself. At the same time the if and unless attributes have been rewritten to do the expected thing if applied to a property expansion (i.e. if="${foo}" will mean "yes, do it" if ${foo} expands to true, in Ant 1.7.1 it would mean "no" unless a property named "true" existed). This adds "testing conditions" as a new use-case to property expansion.
• A new top-level element <extension-point> assists in writing re-usable build files that are meant to be imported. <extension-point> has a name and a dependency-list like <target> and can be used like a <target> from the command line or a dependency-list but the importing build file can add targets to the <extension-point>'s depends list.
• Ant now requires Java 1.4 or later
• new task include provides an alternative to <import> that should be preferred when you don't want to override any targets
• numerous bug fixes and improvements as documented in Bugzilla and in WHATSNEW

Apache Ivy 2.1.0

October 8, 2009 - Apache Ivy 2.1.0 Released

Apache Ivy 2.1.0 is now available for download as source or binary (with and without dependencies) from http://ant.apache.org/ivy/download.cgi.

Key features of the 2.1.0 release are

• enhanced Maven2 compatibility, with several bug fixes and more pom features covered
• new options for the Ivy Ant tasks and commandline
• configuration intersections and configuration groups
• numerous bug fixes and improvements as documented in Jira and in the release notes

For more information see the Ivy home page.

Apache IvyDE 2.0.0

July 13, 2009 - Apache IvyDE 2.0.0 Released

Apache IvyDE 2.0.0 is now available for download from http://ant.apache.org/ivy/ivyde/download.cgi or directly from the updatesite http://www.apache.org/dist/ant/ivyde/updatesite

This is the first release considered as stable since the project as been hosted by the Apache Software Foundation.

Major changes in this release:

• the "resolve in workspace" feature (make IvyDE search for Ivy dependencies directly into the Eclipse projects) has been introduced in the last release but was quite experimental. It has been refactored to be more reliable and have been reported to be working like a charm by some of the IvyDE early users.
• the user documentation of IvyDE is now available directly into the Eclipse help center.
• IvyDE can now load property files along with the Ivy settings.

For more information see the IvyDE home page.

Apache Ivy 2.0.0

January 20, 2009 - Apache Ivy 2.0.0 Released

Apache Ivy 2.0.0 (final) is now available for download as source or binary (with and without dependencies) from http://ant.apache.org/ivy/download.cgi.

This is the first non-beta release of Ivy under Apache and includes some major new features like: enhanced Maven2 compatibility, improved cache management, improved concurrency support and numerous bug fixes and other improvements.

For more information see the Ivy home page.

Apache AntUnit 1.1

September 26, 2008 - Apache AntUnit 1.1 Released

Apache AntUnit 1.1 is now available for download as binary or source release.

In addition to a few bugfixes and some new assertions AntUnit 1.1 allows test listeners to receive the log output of the project under test. Both plainlistener and xmllistener have an option that makes them echo the project's output into their respective logs.

For more information see the Antlib's home page

Apache AntUnit 1.1 Beta 1

September 3, 2008 - Apache AntUnit 1.1 Beta 1 Available

Apache Ant 1.7.1

June 27, 2008 - Apache Ant 1.7.1 Available

Apache Ant 1.7.1 is now available for download.

Ant 1.7.1 is mainly a bugfix release.

Ant 1.7.1 has extended support for Java6 features.

Ant 1.7.1 <script> now has support for JavaFX.

Apache Ivy is an Ant Sub-Project Now!

October 11, 2007 - Apache Ivy is an Ant Sub-Project Now!

Apache Ivy, "A Java based tool for tracking, resolving and managing project dependencies.", just finished Incubation and has joined the Ant project. More information will be available from the Ant site soon.

Until we've finished the migration, you can learn more about Ivy from its Incubator website.

Apache AntUnit 1.0

January 8, 2007 - Apache AntUnit 1.0 Available

Apache AntUnit 1.0 is now available for download.

This Ant Library contains tasks to test Ant tasks using Ant instead of JUnit. For more information see the AntUnit home page.

Apache Ant 1.7.0

December 19, 2006 - Apache Ant 1.7.0 Available

Apache Ant 1.7.0 is now available for download.

Ant 1.7 introduces a resource framework. Some of the core ant tasks such as <copy/> are now able to process not only file system resources but also zip entries, tar entries, paths, ... Resource collections group resources, and can be further combined with operators such as union and intersection. This can be extended by custom resources and custom tasks using resources.

Ant 1.7 starts outsourcing of optional tasks to Antlibs. The .NET antlib in preparation will replace the .NET optional tasks which ship in Ant. Support for the version control system Subversion will be only provided as an antlib to be released shortly.

Ant 1.7 fixes also a large number of bugs.

Ant 1.7 has some initial support for Java6 features.

Apache .NET Ant Library 1.0Beta1

November 6, 2006 - Apache .NET Ant Library 1.0 Available

Apache .NET Ant Library 1.0 is now available for download.

This Ant Library contains support for tools like NUnit as well as the "old" .NET tasks of Ant's core. It has been tested Microsoft's frameworks as well as Mono.

For more information see the Antlib's home page

Apache AntUnit 1.0Beta2

October 29, 2006 - Apache AntUnit 1.0Beta2 Available

Apache AntUnit 1.0Beta1 is now available for download.

This Ant Library contains tasks to test Ant tasks using Ant instead of JUnit. For more information see the AntUnit home page.

Apache AntUnit 1.0Beta1

September 22, 2006 - Apache AntUnit 1.0Beta1 Available

Apache AntUnit 1.0Beta1 is now available for download.

This Ant Library contains tasks to test Ant tasks using Ant instead of JUnit. For more information see the AntUnit home page.

Apache .NET Ant Library 1.0Beta1

September 13, 2006 - Apache .NET Ant Library 1.0Beta1 Available

Apache .NET Ant Library 1.0Beta1 is now available for download.

This Ant Library contains support for tools like NUnit as well as the "old" .NET tasks of Ant's core. It has been tested Microsoft's frameworks as well as Mono.

For more information see the Antlib's home page

Apache Ant 1.6.5

June 2, 2005 - Apache Ant 1.6.5 Available

Apache Ant 1.6.5 is now available for download.

This is a bug fix release.

Apache Ant 1.6.4

May 19, 2005 - Apache Ant 1.6.4 Available

Apache Ant 1.6.4 is now available for download.

This is a bug fix release.

Apache Ant 1.6.3

April 28, 2005 - Apache Ant 1.6.3 Available

Apache Ant 1.6.3 is now available for download.

There is a large list of fixed bugs and enhancements.

Some of the bugs affecting the embedded use of Ant are fixed.

Apache Antidote Retired

April 4th, 2005 - The Apache Ant Project Retires Apache Antidote, the Ant GUI

The Antidote subproject was once started to provide a GUI for Ant at a time where IDE support for Ant was far from usable. Unfortunately it never attracted a developer community of its own.

At the same time IDE support for Ant has become ubiquitous by now and there is little reason to have a GUI just for Ant. This makes it even less likely that volunteers will start to spend time working on it.

Antidote's development has been stalled for years now, despite some efforts to rejuvenate it by single developers. Therefore the Ant developers have chosen to retire Antidote.

Antidote will no longer be developed by the Ant project; its CVS module will be shut down.

If you are interested in Antidote's sources to learn from or build on it, you can find snapshots at http://archive.apache.org/ant/antidote/.

Apache Ant 1.6.2

July 16, 2004 - Apache Ant 1.6.2 Available

Apache Ant 1.6.2 available for download.

Nested elements for namespaced tasks and types may belong to the Ant default namespace as well as the task's or type's namespace.

All exceptions thrown by tasks are now wrapped in a buildexception giving the location in the buildfile of the task.

Ant 1.6.2 fixes a large number of bugs and adds a number of features which were asked for by users on Bugzilla.

Wiki Migration

February 29, 2004

The Apache Ant Wiki pages have been migrated to their new home on the Apache Wiki farm.

Apache Ant 1.6.1

February 12, 2004 - Apache Ant 1.6.1 Available

Apache Ant 1.6.1 is still available for download.

The ASF Board has approved the new Apache License 2.0. For a copy of that license, please see http://www.apache.org/licenses/.

The Ant 1.6.1 release is delivered with the Apache License 2.0.

Ant 1.6.1 fixes several bugs, most notably the handling of the default namespace for nested elements.

Ant 1.6.1 also introduces initial support for compiling with Java 1.5.

Apache Ant 1.6.0

December 18, 2003 - Apache Ant 1.6.0 Available

Apache Ant 1.6.0 is still available for download.

As we've already said in the announcements of Ant 1.5.4, this release requires JDK 1.2 or later to run.

Ant 1.6.0 adds a lot of new features, most prominently support for XML namespaces as well as a new concept of Ant libraries that makes use of namespaces to avoid name clashes of custom tasks. For a longer list of fixed bugs and new features see the release notes.

If you find anything that hasn't been covered in the manual (I bet you did) or could be explained better, feel free to help us out in the Wiki.

Apache Ant 1.5.4

August 12, 2003 - Apache Ant 1.5.4 Available

Apache Ant 1.5.4 is still available for download.

This is a minor bugfix release that fixes a problem with the javah task on JDK 1.4.2 and a couple of bugs in the Visual Age for Java intergration tasks. If you don't use javah or VAJ, there is no reason to upgrade.

Java Pro 2003 Readers Choice Award

June 11th, 2003: Apache Ant wins a Java Pro readers' choice award

Ant has won the Java Pro 2003 Readers' Choice Award for

Most Valuable Java Deployment Technology.

Thanks to Java Pro and all its readers. You can read about these awards at the Java Pro website.

JDJ Editors Choice Award

June 2003: Apache Ant wins JDJ Editors' Choice Award

"Ant is the hammer of the Java world: without it, civilization might have progressed, but much more slowly than it has. Ant is one of the most useful build tools I have ever had the pleasure to use." - Joe Ottinger

Apache Ant keeps on winning!

June 9th, 2003: Apache Ant wins the JavaWorld Editors' Choice Award

Ant has won the JavaWorld Editors' Choice Award for

Most Useful Java Community-Developed Technology

for the second time in a row! Read the full article -- or jump directly to the bit about our award :)

Apache Ant 1.5.3

April 9, 2003 - Apache Ant 1.5.3 Available

Apache Ant 1.5.3 is still available for download.

Apache Ant 1.5.2

March 3, 2003 - Apache Ant 1.5.2 Available!

The final version of Ant 1.5.2 is available for download. If you have any feedback on this release, feel free to join the discussion on the dev and user mailing lists.

Apache Ant Top Level Project

November 18, 2002

The Apache board created the Apache Ant top level project. Ant has now migrated from the Jakarta project into an Apache project of its own. This is primarily an organizational change and will not affect the technical aspects of the project. Ant retains a strong association with the Apache Jakarta project. One effect of this change is that the Ant webpage is now located at http://ant.apache.org/

Apache Ant 1.5.1

October 3, 2002 - Apache Ant 1.5.1 Available !

The final version of Ant 1.5.1 is still available for download. If you have any feedback on this release, feel free to join the discussion on the ant-dev and ant-user mailing lists.

Apache Ant 1.5

July 15, 2002 - Fix for Cygwin problem in wrapper script available

The wrapper script of Apache Ant 1.5 needs to be replaced with a new version for Cygwin users. See the FAQ for details.

July 10, 2002 - Apache Ant 1.5 Released!

The final version of Ant 1.5 is now available for download. If you have any feedback on this release, feel free to join the discussion on the ant-dev and ant-user mailing lists.

Apache Ant wins again!

Apr 29, 2002: Apache Ant wins Software Development magazine's 2002 Productivity Award.

Ant has been awarded a 2002 Productivity Award by Software Development magazine. Read the press release for more information and the full list of winners.

Apache Ant has won!

Mar 26, 2002: Apache Ant wins the JavaWorld Editors' Choice Award

Ant has won the JavaWorld Editors' Choice Award for Most Useful Java Community-Developed Technology. Read the full article -- or jump directly to the bit about our award :)

Java 1.4 Support

Feb 15, 2002: Java 1.4 Support

Java 1.4 has now been released by Sun. The latest Apache Ant source supports the new assert statement in the compiler task via the source attribute. It also contains a compatibility fix needed for some ant tasks on Java 1.4 over Windows XP. If you have problems running Ant 1.4.1 on WinXP/Java 1.4, please use a recent build or compile your own version from the source tree.

See our new logo!

Have a look at our new cool logo!

Apache Ant 1.4.1

11 October 2001 Apache Ant 1.4.1 released !

Please visit the download area.

Best-Practices Profile of Apache Ant at Sun's Dot-Com Builder

Sun has released an introductory article on Apache Ant on their Dot-Com Builder site on May 30 2001. See http://dcb.sun.com/practices/profiles/ant.jsp