Ant is an open source and 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 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.
Ant is different. Ant is extended using Java classes, instead of a model where it is extended with shell-based commands.
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 that implements a particular Task interface.
Requirements:
· Java 1.2 or later
What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]
Changes that could break older environments:
· The Enumeration returned by AntClassLoader#getResources used to return null in nextElement after hasNextElement would return false. It has been changed to throw a NoSuchElementException instead so that it now adheres to the contract of java.util.Enumeration. Bugzilla Report 51579.
Fixed bugs:
· Removed buggy duplicate JAR list in RPM mode. Bugzilla Report 52556.
· Launcher fixed to pass the right class loader parent. Bugzilla Report 48633.
· mishandled ${line.separator}. Bugzilla Report 51049.
· did not work in embedded environments on JDK 7. Nor did when using Xalan redirects. Bugzilla Report 51668, 52382.
· Encoding of unicode escape sequences by the property file task Bugzilla Report 50515.
· The code that implicitly sets the -source switch if only -target has been specified in was broken for Java 5 and 6. Bugzilla Report 50578.
· MailLogger ignore the Maillogger.starttls.enable property. Bugzilla Report 50668.
· Delete task example does not work ...
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