Aims of This Chapter

Apache Ant is a powerful build tool with significant built-in capabilities. However, a few capabilities and best practices stand out; they are described here. After reading this chapter, you will be able to

• Understand what Ant property files are and how they can be used to make build scripts more maintainable.

• Understand how to use Ant's capabilities to better integrate with IBM Rational ClearCase.

• Implement Ant build files that support reuse and maintainability on large projects.

This chapter assumes that you are familiar with the basic concepts of Apache Ant that were discussed in Chapter 4, "Defining Your Build and Release Scripts."