Ant

1
Ant Eclipse

• CEN3031 Software Engineering

2
Ant make utility

• Ant
• Operating system independent java-based make
  utility
• make
• UNIX utility which allows you to manage large
  programs or groups of programs.
• makefile
• Describes the relationship among source files and
  provides commands for updating each file.
• make invokes makefile to automatically rebuild a
  program whenever one of the source files is
  modified.
• All files dependent on any of modified files are
  also rebuilt.
• Apart from compilation, make is an effective tool
  for program installation and system configuration
  changes.

3
Ant General

• Ant's buildfiles are written in XML.
• XML Extensible Markup Language
• Markup Language a language such as HTML and XML
  that use tags (Markups) to format the Content of
  documents.
• The buildfile is named build.xml by default
• Each buildfile contains one project and at least
  one (default) target.
• Each project defines one or more targets.
• A target is a set of tasks you want to be
  executed.

4
Ant General (Cont.)

• Project
• Three attributes name, default, basedir
• Targets
• Specifies a set of tasks you want to have run
• A target can depend on other targets
• Use depends attribute to specify dependencies
• depends attribute specifies the order in which
  targets should be executed
• Tasks
• A piece of code that can be executed
• Built-in tasks mkdir, delete, zip, etc
• Optional tasks image, sound, junit, telet, etc
• You can also write your own task
• Properties
• A property has a name and a value

5
Working With Ant

• Create Project File -gt New -gt Project -gt Java
  Project -gt Name it, HelloAnt
• Create class File -gt New -gt Class -gtName it,
  HelloAnt
• Inside of the main() method add following
• System.out.println(Hello Ant Example)
• Crate another class File -gt New -gt Class -gtName
  it, HelloAnt2
• Inside of the main() method add following
• System.out.println(Hello Another Ant Example)
• To work with Ant, we'll need an Ant buildfile
  which is named build.xml by default.
• Right click the project -gt New -gt Name it,
  build.xml -gt finish
• Eclipse recognizes that build.xml is an Ant build
  file, and marks it with an ant icon.

6
Ant buildfile

• What we will do in our Ant buildfile are
• Initialize (clean up, create directories)
• compiles my stuff
• make the jar, so that I can deploy it
• We will have targets of following
• lttarget name"Main Build" depends"Initialize,
  Jar, Compile"gt
• lttarget name"Initialize"gt
• lttarget name"Compile" depends"Initialize"gt
• lttarget name"Jar" depends"Initialize, Compile"gt

7
Sample build.xml

• lt?xml version"1.0" encoding"UTF-8" ?gt
• ltproject name"HelloAnt" default"Main Build"
  basedir"."gt
• ltproperty name"bin" location"bin" /gt
•   ltproperty name"src" location"src" /gt
•   ltproperty name"jardir" location"bin/lib"
  /gt
•   ltproperty name"jarfile" location"jardir/H
  elloAnt.jar" /gt
• lttarget name"Main Build" depends"Initialize,
  Jar, Compile"gt
• ltecho message"Ant at work!" /gt
• lt/targetgt

8
Sample build.xml (Cont.)

• lttarget name"Initialize"gt
• ltdelete dir"bin" /gt
•   ltdelete dir"jardir" /gt
• ltmkdir dir"bin" /gt
•   ltmkdir dir"jardir" /gt
• lt/targetgt
• lttarget name"Compile" depends"Initialize"gt
•   ltjavac srcdir"src" destdir"bin" /gt
• lt/targetgt
• lttarget name"Jar" depends"Initialize,
  Compile"gt
•   ltjar destfile"jarfile" basedir"bin" /gt
  
• lt/targetgt
• lt/projectgt
• Execution order Initialize -gt Compile -gt Jar -gt
  Main Build

9
Run Ant

• Right Click build.xml -gt Run As -gt Ant Build
• Let's take a look the result of running the
  build.xml
• /bin/lib/ directories created under /HelloAnt/
• HelloAnt.class, HelloAnt2.class created under
  /HelloAnt/bin/
• HelloAnt.jar created under /HelloAnt/bin/lib/
• Run selective targets Right click on the target
  name from Ant View -gt Run As -gt Ant Build

10
References

• Apache Ant 1.6.2 Manual
• http//ant.apache.org/manual/index.html
• Introduction to Eclipse, CVS, Tomcat, and ANT
• http//smweb.bcgsc.bc.ca/cbw/dtt2004.html
• Building Eclipse Projects Usint Ant
• http//www.onjava.com/onjava/2004/02/04/AntEclipse
  .pdf

11
Sourceforge submission

• Visit
• http//sf0.cise.ufl.edu8080/sf/sfmain/do/home
• Logon to Sourceforge with your ID and password
• Click on Project tab
• Click on your project
• Click on Documents tab
• Click on Create button located at your bottom
  right
• Browse to your zipped (tarred) file and click on
  Save