Introduction

Apache Ant (http://ant.apache.org/) is a Java- and XML-based automation tool that is available as open source software from the Apache Software Foundation. Ant began its life as part of the Tomcat code base. The tool's first official release as a standalone software product was in July 2000, according to the Ant FAQ (http://ant.apache.org/faq.html). The original creator of both Ant and Tomcat is James Duncan Davidson.

Ant has evolved into the build tool of choice for automating Java software projects, which means building these projects from beginning to end. This includes compiling Java classes, creating JAR or WAR files, and initiating filesystem-related tasks such as creating directories and moving or copying files. All of these tasks are controlled by the Ant build file for a specific project.

An Ant build file is an XML file that is launched from the command line and executes Java classes behind the scenes. Ant is also extensible; you can customize this tool to suit your own purposes. In addition, Ant is cross-platform and very portable, since it is based on XML and Java. Once web developers become familiar with this handy and powerful tool, they find that it greatly eases the task of compiling, packaging, and inevitably altering and redeploying their web applications.

This chapter first describes how to download Ant and set it up on your system, and then explains Ant targets and tasks for those who are new to Ant. The rest of you can merrily move on to other recipes describing how to create a classpath that includes the necessary Tomcat JAR files, create WAR and JAR files, and use Ant to execute Tomcat's Manager application.