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<h1>Running Ant</h1>
<h2><a name="commandline">Command Line</a></h2>
<p> If you've installed Ant as described in the
<a href="install.html"> Installing Ant</a> section,
running Ant from the command-line is simple: just type
<code>ant</code>.</p>
<p>When no arguments are specified, Ant looks for a <code>build.xml</code>
file in the current directory and, if found, uses that file as the
buildfile and runs the "default" target.
If you use the <code>-find</code> option,
Ant will search for a buildfile first in the current directory, then in
the parent directory, and so on, until either a buildfile is found or the root
of the filesystem has been reached. To make Ant use
a buildfile other than <code>build.xml</code>, use the command-line
option <code>-buildfile <i>file</i></code>,
where <i>file</i> is the name of the buildfile you want to use.</p>
<p>You can also set <a href="using.html#properties">properties</a> that
override properties specified in the
buildfile (see the <a href="CoreTasks/property.html">property</a> task).
This can be done with
the <nobr><code>-D<i>property</i>=<i>value</i></code></nobr> option,
where <i>property</i> is the name of the property,
and <i>value</i> is the value for that property.
This can also be used to pass in the value of environment variables.
Just pass <nobr><code>-DMYVAR=%MYVAR%</code></nobr> (Windows) or
<nobr><code>-DMYVAR=$MYVAR</code></nobr> (Unix)
to Ant - you can then access
these variables inside your buildfile as <code>${MYVAR}</code>.
You can also access environment variables using the <a href="CoreTasks/property.html">
property</a> task.
</p>
<p>Options that affect the amount of logging output by Ant are: <nobr><code>-quiet</code></nobr>,
which instructs Ant to print less
information on the console when running;
<nobr><code>-verbose</code></nobr>, which causes Ant to print
additional information to the console; and <nobr><code>-debug</code></nobr>,
which causes Ant to print considerably more additional information.
</p>
<p>It is also possible to specify one or more targets that should be executed.
When omitted, the target that is specified in the
<code>default</code> attribute of the
<a href="using.html#projects"><code>project</code></a> tag is
used.</p>
<p>The <nobr><code>-projecthelp</code></nobr> option prints out a list
of the buildfile's targets, along with the
text in the <code>description</code> attribute of the target,
if one was specified, followed by a list of those targets without one.</p>
<h3><a name="options">Command-line Options Summary</a></h3>
<pre>ant [options] [target [target2 [target3] ...]]
Options:
-help print this message
-projecthelp print project help information
-version print the version information and exit
-quiet be extra quiet
-verbose be extra verbose
-debug print debugging information
-emacs produce logging information without adornments
-logfile <i>file</i> use given file for log output
-logger <i>classname</i> the class that is to perform logging
-listener <i>classname</i> add an instance of class as a project listener
-buildfile <i>file</i> use specified buildfile
-find <i>file</i> search for buildfile towards the root of the filesystem and use the first one found
-D<i>property</i>=<i>value</i> set <i>property</i> to <i>value</i>
</pre>
<p>For more information about <code>-logger</code> and
<code>-listener</code> see the section <a
href="listeners.html">Loggers & Listeners</a>
<h3>Examples</h3>
<blockquote>
<pre>ant</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>runs Ant using the <code>build.xml</code> file in the current directory, on
the default target.</p>
<blockquote>
<pre>ant -buildfile test.xml</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>runs Ant using the <code>test.xml</code> file in the current directory, on
the default target.</p>
<blockquote>
<pre>ant -buildfile test.xml dist</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>runs Ant using the <code>test.xml</code> file in the current directory, on a
target called <code>dist</code>.</p>
<blockquote>
<pre>ant -buildfile test.xml -Dbuild=build/classes dist</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>runs Ant using the <code>test.xml</code> file in the current directory, on a
target called <code>dist</code>, setting the <code>build</code> property to the
value <code>build/classes</code>.</p>
<h3><a name="files">Files</a></h3>
<p>The Ant wrapper script for Unix will source (read and evaluate) the
file <code>~/.antrc</code> before it does anything - the Windows batch
file invokes <code>%HOME%\antrc_pre.bat</code> at the start and
<code>%HOME%\antrc_post.bat</code> at the end. You can use these
files to set/unset environment variables that should only be visible
during the execution of Ant. See the next section for example.</p>
<h3><a name="envvars">Environment Variables</a></h3>
<p>The wrapper scripts use the following environment variables (if
set):</p>
<ul>
<li><code>JAVACMD</code> - full path of the Java executable. Use this
to invoke a different JVM than <code>JAVA_HOME/bin/java(.exe)</code>.</li>
<li><code>ANT_OPTS</code> - command-line arguments that should be
passed to the JVM. For example, you can define properties or set
the maximum Java heap size here.</li>
<li><code>ANT_ARGS</code> - Ant command-line arguments. For example,
set <code>ANT_ARGS</code> to point to a different logger and to
include the <code>-find</code> flag.</li>
</ul>
<h2><a name="viajava">Running Ant via Java</a></h2>
<p>If you have installed Ant in the do-it-yourself way, Ant can be started
with:</p>
<blockquote>
<pre>java -Dant.home=c:\ant org.apache.tools.ant.Main [options] [target]</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>These instructions actually do exactly the same as the <code>ant</code>
command. The options and target are the same as when running Ant with the <code>ant</code>
command. This example assumes you have set your classpath to include:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>ant.jar</code></li>
<li>jars/classes for your XML parser</li>
<li>the JDK's required jar/zip files</li>
</ul>
<br>
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<p align="center">Copyright © 2000,2001 Apache Software Foundation. All rights
Reserved.</p>
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