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Ant

What is ANT? This is how the ANT homepage defines its tool:

Apache Ant is a Java-based build tool. In theory, it is kind of like Make, but without Make's wrinkles.

Basics#

  • the ANT build file is based on XML
  • the usual name for the build file is build.xml
  • invocation - the usual build file needs not be specified explicitly, if it's in the current directory; if not target is specified, the default one is used
ant [-f <build-file>] [<target>]
  • displaying all the available targets of a build file
ant [-f <build-file>] -projecthelp

Weka and ANT#

  • a build file for Weka is available from git (it has been included in the weka-src.jar since version 3.4.8 and 3.5.3)
  • it is located in the weka directory

  • some targets of interest

  • clean - Removes the build, dist and reports directories; also any class files in the source tree

  • compile - Compile weka and deposit class files in ${path_modifier}/build/classes
  • docs - Make javadocs into {${path_modifier}/doc}}
  • exejar - Create an executable jar file in ${path_modifier}/dist