'Is my command not executingbecause I have a space in front of my tab?!!' said the original author ofAnt way too many times. Anybody who has worked on them for anytime has run into the dreaded tab problem. Why another build tool when there is already make, gnumake, nmake, jam,andothers? Because all those tools have limitations that Ant's original authorcouldn't live with when developing software across multiple platforms.Make-liketools are inherently shell-based: they evaluate a set of dependencies,then execute commands not unlike what you would issue on a shell.This means that youcan easily extend these tools by using or writing any program for the OS thatyou are working on however, this also means that you limit yourself to the OS,or at least the OS type, such as Unix, that you are working on. In theory, it is kind of like make, without make's wrinkles. See the FAQ for details.Apache Ant is a Java-based build tool. Do neither of the above, and instead, specify their locations using a element in the build file.Do not put either in ANT_HOME/lib, and instead include their locations in your CLASSPATH environment variable.

Put both junit.jar and the optional tasks jar file in ANT_HOME/lib.Note: You must have junit.jar and the class files for the task in the same classpath.Put them in Ant’s lib directory, or add to the system classpath.Require libraries that are not supplied with Ant.Selectors are a mechanism whereby the files that make up a fileset can be selected based on criteria other than filename.Sample file (part 1) A simple Java project Sample file (unreadable) A simple Java project is executed each time ant is invoked, even for -projecthelp.contains all “top-level” targets and types.Project contains tasks, which contain targets and types.How to do task dependencies (don't compile unless fetch got stuff).Other hints and suggestions from an expert?.How do I define projects to run using Ant?.

How do I create and destroy directories?.

What is the advantages/disadvantages of defining properties in build.properties instead of build.xml?.

What is the difference between build.xml and build.properties?.

What is the basic structure of an Ant file?.

Skip the book, most of the material is right here.

Apache ant user manual