Ant Howto

Mac OS X ships with Java and Ant preinstalled, so there is nothing to do. *nix/BSD users should use their favourite package management solution. The examples in this tutorial refer to Windows systems. If you are experiencing any problems following these steps, please turn to your local IT service staff for support.


Table of Contents

Installing Ant is simple - just follow these steps:

Installing Ant is simple - just follow these steps:

  1. Ant requires a full Java SE Development Kit (JDK) already installed on your machine (with only a Runtime Environment, aka JRE, many tasks will not work). Download one at http://java.sun.com/j2se and install it on your system.

  2. Download Ant from http://www.apache.org/dist/ant/ant-current-bin.zip

  3. Unzip this archive into a directory of your choice (e.g. C:\Programs\ant).

  4. Set the ANT_HOME environment variable to the directory where you installed Ant:

    Right-click on My Computer/Properties/Advanced/Environment Variables/New System Variable

    Enter ANT_HOME for name and the path from above (C:\Programs\ant as in the example) for value

  5. Add the bin directory inside the Ant installation directory to your system path:

    In the same dialog, find the Variable "PATH", click Edit, and add ";C:\Programme\ant\bin" (or whatever your path is) at the end of the value field.

  6. Open a command line window and type "ant -version". If Ant's version information appears, you're done.