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Apache Ant (Another Neat Tool) is a build tool, mainly for Java projects. A build tool can be used to automate certain repetitive tasks, e.g. compiling source code, running software tests, creating jar files, javadocs, etc.

A build process typically includes:

Ant uses a xml file for its configuration. This file is usually called "build.xml". Within this build file you specify the targets for ant. A target is a step which ant will perform. You also can specific dependencies. If target A depends on target B, ant will first do B and then A. Also you specify the main target. This target is the target ant will try to execute per default. If this target depends on other targets then ant will automatically perform these task first and so on and so on.

Apache Ant allows to run JUnit tests. Ant defines the "junit" task. You only need to include the junit.jar and the compiled classes into the classpath for Ant and then you can run Junit tests. See JUnit Tutorial for an introduction into JUnit.

The following is a JUnit test for the previous example.

			
package test;

import math.MyMath;

import org.junit.Test;

import static org.junit.Assert.assertEquals;

public class MyMathTest {
	@Test
	public void testMulti() {
		MyMath math = new MyMath();
		assertEquals(50, math.multi(5, 10));
	}
}

		

You can run this JUnit unit test via the following build.xml. This example assumes that the JUnit jar "junit.jar" is in folder "lib".

			
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<project name="Ant-Test" default="main" basedir=".">
	<!-- Sets variables which can later be used. -->
	<!-- The value of a property is accessed via ${} -->
	<property name="src.dir" location="src" />
	
	<property name="build.dir" location="build" />

	<!-- Variables used for JUnit testin -->
	<property name="test.dir" location="src" />
	<property name="test.report.dir" location="testreport" />

	<!-- Define the classpath which includes the junit.jar and the classes after compiling-->
	<path id="junit.class.path">
		<pathelement location="lib/junit.jar" />
		<pathelement location="${build.dir}" />
	</path>


	<!-- Deletes the existing build, docs and dist directory-->
	<target name="clean">
		<delete dir="${build.dir}" />
		<delete dir="${test.report.dir}" />
	</target>

	<!-- Creates the  build, docs and dist directory-->
	<target name="makedir">
		<mkdir dir="${build.dir}" />
		<mkdir dir="${test.report.dir}" />
	</target>

	<!-- Compiles the java code (including the usage of library for JUnit -->
	<target name="compile" depends="clean, makedir">
		<javac srcdir="${src.dir}" destdir="${build.dir}">
			<classpath refid="junit.class.path" />
		</javac>

	</target>

	<!-- Run the JUnit Tests -->
	<!-- Output is XML, could also be plain-->
	<target name="junit" depends="compile">
		<junit printsummary="on" fork="true" haltonfailure="yes">
			<classpath refid="junit.class.path" />
			<formatter type="xml" />
			<batchtest todir="${test.report.dir}">
				<fileset dir="${src.dir}">
					<include name="**/*Test*.java" />
				</fileset>
			</batchtest>
		</junit>
	</target>

	<target name="main" depends="compile, junit">
		<description>Main target</description>
	</target>

</project>
		

Apache Ant does not include a standard task which can be used to checkout source code from a subversion repository. You can download an additional ant task for this from the following website: http://subclipse.tigris.org/svnant.html

To use the svn task you have to add svnant.jar and svnClientAdapter.jar, svnjavahl.jar and svnkit.jar to your ant classpath.

The following example will checkout the svnant task source code via the svnant task.

			
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<project name="svn-test" default="Main" basedir=".">
	<!-- Sets variables which can later be used. -->
	<!-- The value of a property is accessed via ${} -->
	<property name="checkout" location="c:\temp\svncheckout\" />
	<!-- Define the classpath which includes the jars that are required for svnant.jar -->
	<path id="svnant.class.path">
		<pathelement location="lib/svnant.jar" />
		<pathelement location="lib/svnClientAdapter.jar" />
		<pathelement location="lib/svnjavahl.jar" />
		<pathelement location="lib/svnkit.jar" />
	</path>

	<typedef resource="org/tigris/subversion/svnant/svnantlib.xml" classpathref="svnant.class.path" />


	<!-- Deletes the existing build, docs and dist directory-->
	<target name="clean">
		<delete dir="${checkout}" />
	</target>

	<!-- Creates the  build, docs and dist directory-->
	<target name="makedir">
		<mkdir dir="${checkout}" />
	</target>


	<!-- Checkout the latest source code of svnant itself-->
	<target name="svn">
		<svn username="guest" password="">
			<checkout url="http://subclipse.tigris.org/svn/subclipse/trunk/svnant/" revision="HEAD" destPath="${checkout}" />
		</svn>
	</target>

	<target name="Main" depends="clean, makedir, svn">
		<description>Main target</description>
	</target>

</project>
		

					
<target name="checkOutWithProxy">
	<setproxy proxyhost="${proxy.host}" proxyport="${proxy.port}" />
	<svn>
		<checkout url="${url.main}" destPath="${targetdir}" />
	</svn>
</target>
				

Eclipse has an ant editor which make the editing of ant file very easy by providing syntax checking of the build file. Eclipse has also a ant view. In this view you execute ant files via double-clicking on the target.

Thank you for practicing with this tutorial.

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