mirror of
https://github.com/moparisthebest/MoparClassic
synced 2024-11-14 21:25:03 -05:00
71 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
71 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
|
|
A N T
|
|
|
|
|
|
What is it?
|
|
-----------
|
|
|
|
Ant is a Java based build tool. In theory it is kind of like "make"
|
|
without makes wrinkles and with the full portability of pure java code.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Why?
|
|
----
|
|
|
|
Why another build tool when there is already make, gnumake, nmake, jam,
|
|
and others? Because all of those tools have limitations that its original
|
|
author couldn't live with when developing software across multiple platforms.
|
|
|
|
Make-like tools are inherently shell based. They evaluate a set of
|
|
dependencies and then execute commands not unlike what you would issue on a
|
|
shell. This means that you can easily extend these tools by using or writing
|
|
any program for the OS that you 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.
|
|
|
|
Makefiles are inherently evil as well. Anybody who has worked on them for any
|
|
time has run into the dreaded tab problem. "Is my command not executing
|
|
because I have a space in front of my tab!!!" said the original author of Ant
|
|
way too many times. Tools like Jam took care of this to a great degree, but
|
|
still use yet another format to use and remember.
|
|
|
|
Ant is different. Instead a model where it is extended with shell based
|
|
commands, it is extended using Java classes. Instead of writing shell
|
|
commands, the configuration files are XML based calling out a target tree
|
|
where various tasks get executed. Each task is run by an object which
|
|
implements a particular Task interface.
|
|
|
|
Granted, this removes some of the expressive power that is inherent by being
|
|
able to construct a shell command such as `find . -name foo -exec rm {}` but
|
|
it gives you the ability to be cross platform. To work anywhere and
|
|
everywhere. And hey, if you really need to execute a shell command, Ant has
|
|
an exec rule that allows different commands to be executed based on the OS
|
|
that it is executing on.
|
|
|
|
The Latest Version
|
|
------------------
|
|
|
|
Details of the latest version can be found on the Apache Ant
|
|
Project web site <http://ant.apache.org/>.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Documentation
|
|
-------------
|
|
|
|
Documentation is available in HTML format, in the docs/ directory.
|
|
For information about building and installing Ant, see
|
|
docs/manual/index.html
|
|
|
|
|
|
Licensing
|
|
---------
|
|
|
|
This software is licensed under the terms you may find in the file
|
|
named "LICENSE" in this directory.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thanks for using Ant.
|
|
|
|
The Apache Ant Project
|
|
<http://ant.apache.org/>
|