Installing ANT on Windows and or Mac OS X

Posted At : June 27, 2007 6:23 PM | Posted By : Andy Jarrett
Related Categories: Rough Guide, Eclipse, Ant

I'm gonna try and cover the two OS's here so be kind.

First things first, goto http://ant.apache.org/bindownload.cgi and download the appropriate archive (zip) file: apache-ant-[VERSION NUMBER HERE]-bin.zip

Then for Windows: Extract the .zip to c:\ant. From the command line set the following environment variables:

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set ANT_HOME=c:\ant
set JAVA_HOME=c:\jdk-1.5.0.05
set PATH=%PATH%;%ANT_HOME%\bin

1  set ANT_HOME=c:\ant
2  set JAVA_HOME=c:\jdk-1.5.0.05
3  set PATH=%PATH%;%ANT_HOME%\bin

For Mac: Unpack the zip file to /usr/local/ant/. Then from the command line set the following environment variables:

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export ANT_HOME=/usr/local/ant
export PATH=${PATH}:${ANT_HOME}/bin

1 export ANT_HOME=/usr/local/ant
2 export PATH=${PATH}:${ANT_HOME}/bin

Now open up the Terminal(Mac)/Command line(Win) and just type "ANT" and hit return. You should see:

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Buildfile: build.xml does not exist!
Build failed

1 Buildfile: build.xml does not exist!
2 Build failed

To demonstrate calling a file we're gonna create a quick build.xml. Create a new text file, enter the following bit of XML and save it as build.xml

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project name="myProject" default="runEcho" basedir=".">
<target name="runEcho">
<!-- Simply echo's a message to the screen -->
<echo message="Is anybody out there"/>
</target>
</project>

1  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
2  <project name="myProject" default="runEcho" basedir=".">
3      <target name="runEcho">
4          
5          <echo message="Is anybody out there"/>
6      </target>
7  </project>

If you are on Windows save this file to the root of c:\ and from the command line run the following

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ant -buildfile c:\build.xml

1 ant -buildfile c:\build.xml

If you are on Mac then just save this to the desktop and from the Terminal run:

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ant -buildfile ~/desktop/build.xml

1 ant -buildfile ~/desktop/build.xml

You should now see

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Buildfile: {PATH_TO_YOU_BUILD_FILE}build.xml
runEcho:
[echo] Is anybody out there
BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 0 seconds

1  Buildfile: {PATH_TO_YOU_BUILD_FILE}build.xml
2
3  runEcho:
4  [echo] Is anybody out there
5
6  BUILD SUCCESSFUL
7  Total time: 0 seconds

That's pretty much it, from here you you are now set to run Ant from the Terminal/Command line so in theory you should be able to schedule tasks etc!

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Andy?............. Go celebrate mate and leave this nerdy stuff alone for a while ;)

# Posted By Big Mad Kev | 6/28/07 6:14 AM

Don't worry Kev, the alcohol hasn't stopped .. i'm just slowly building up to prepare my body for some abusive drinking come the weekend

# Posted By Andy J | 6/28/07 9:04 AM

If he was a real nerd he would have proposed with a build.xml file :) I'll add this to my wiki!

# Posted By Jim Priest | 6/28/07 12:18 PM

In my nerd days, I once asked my girlfriend on a date using the Wizard from Microsoft Agent :P

http://www.microsoft.com/msagent/default.asp

# Posted By tony petruzzi | 6/28/07 12:59 PM

If Andy was a real nerd he wouldn't be able to approach a girl to start with ;)

# Posted By Big Mad Kev | 6/28/07 1:04 PM

I did consider building a CFC that would except her answer as a boolean and only return it to me as a true value ... no chance of unexpected bugs then

# Posted By Andy J | 6/28/07 1:38 PM

Anyone know if you can pass in attributes to the build.xml file?

# Posted By Critter | 6/29/07 10:05 AM

@Critter, easier to explain in a post :o)
http://www.andyjarrett.co.uk/andy/blog/index.cfm/2...

# Posted By Andy J | 6/29/07 10:51 AM

aye.

danke

# Posted By Critter | 6/29/07 11:57 AM

Here's a windows installer for Ant that I made: http://code.google.com/p/winant/
I hope it's useful, and let me know if you'd like to develop it further.

# Posted By Mason Simon | 7/7/07 7:36 AM

Very usefull, thanks a lot!

# Posted By Johnny Metal | 5/17/08 2:40 AM

Thanks Andy for this tutorial.
Really Helped me.. someone new to ANT.
Cheers !!!
Sriram

# Posted By Sriram Rajagopalan | 5/28/09 8:38 PM

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Andyjarrett.com. ColdFusion developer and general beta whore. If it moves on the web i'll try and consume it

Installing ANT on Windows and or Mac OS X

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