Installing Ant Under Windows

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Ant allows you to write a build script once and use it to rebuild and redeploy your distribution whenever you need to. Ant is especially well suited to Java and contains a number of specialized features intended specifically for the Java developer.

Downloading the Distribution

Point your browser to http://jakarta.apache.org/builds/jakarta-ant/release/v1.4.1/bin/ and select the binary zip file. Save the file to a known location.

Unpacking the Distribution

Open the saved file using a zip unarchiver and extract all the files, preferably to C:\(which will create a directory C:\jakarta-ant-1.4.1). Be sure to click Use Folder Names in the Extract dialog box, if it's offered .

Adding Ant to the Windows Path

Refer to the instructions appropriate for your operating system in the previous section "Installing JDK Under Windows." Using the same procedure that you used to add JDK to the PATH environment variable, add the following:

 ;C:\jakarta-ant-1.4.1\bin 

Reboot if you are running Windows 95 or 98.

Testing Ant

Open a command window by choosing Start, Program Files, Accessories. At the command prompt, type ant. You should see the following:

 C:\Documents and Settings\james>ant Buildfile: build.xml does not exist! Build failed 

This tells you that Ant is in place and that it couldn't find a build.xml file, which is the file that Ant uses to determine what actions need to take place to build or deploy an application.

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