Section 1.3. Installing Ant

1.3. Installing Ant

To run the examples in this book, you'll also need to download and install the Ant project. Browse to http://ant.apache.org and grab the latest version.

Make sure that the bin directory of your Ant installation is in your path, and then type ant at the command prompt. Ant should come back with the message "Build file does not exist." This message means that Ant is installed correctly and could not find the build.xml file when it tried to load it.

If you don't have Ant installed correctly, you will see an error such as "executable file ant not found." In this case, check to make sure that your PATH environment variable is set to include the bin directory of the Ant installation. As with TOMCAT_HOME, Windows users can set the PATH variable through System Properties (Start Control Panel System Properties Advanced Environment Variables), while Linux and Unix users must add lines such as the following to their shells initialization file (most likely .bashrc):

 export TOMCAT_HOME=/usr/local/tomcat/Tomcat5.0 export PATH=$PATH:$TOMCAT_HOME/bin 

Once you have Ant installed correctly, you can use it to build the applications presented in this book. If you need more information on Ant, consult the documentation at http://ant.apache.org or one of the many books written about Ant. Steve Holzner's Ant: The Definitive Guide (O'Reilly) is the reference I use, and it has served me well.