Ant's angry.

January, 2004 "ants are angry."Read the notes of Steve Loughran's "Ant in Anger" article. ^_^
The name and content of the top-level goal suggested by Steve.

The name of the target	Content
Build	Building Application Systems
Test	Running JUnit tests
Clean	Empty the Output directory
Deploy	Loading files such as jar or war into the execution system
Publish	Output source code and binary files to the publishing site
Fetch	Get the latest source code from the CVS tree
Docs/javadocs	Output document File
All	Execute clean, Fetch,build,test,dos/javadocs, deploy
Main	The default build process

Name of the built-in target	Content
Init	Initializing attributes and performing other initialization tasks, reading personalization properties files
Init-debug	Initializing debugging features
Init-release	Initializing Publishing attributes
Compile	Perform the actual compilation
Link/jar	Create a jar file or equivalent file
Staging	Perform pre-deployment processes and tests before transferring applications to the product site

The development directory structure of a simple project

Directory Name	Content
Bin	Storing normal binaries and script files
Build	Directory tree for building results, created by Ant and can be emptied by "clean" target
Dist	Used to store published development results, created by Ant and can be emptied by the "clean" target
Doc	Handwritten documents
Lib	The Java library that needs to be loaded when building the application system
Src	Store the Java source code, and the hierarchy of the directory should conform to the requirements of the package naming.

ant Tasks at a glanceArchive class Tasks
Audit/coverage Tasks
Compiling a class task
Deployment class Tasks
Document class Tasks
EJB class Tasks
Perform class tasks
File class Tasks
JAVA2 Extension class Tasks
Log class Tasks
Message class Tasks
Other miscellaneous tasks
. NET class tasks
Pre-compiled class tasks
Attribute Class class Tasks
Remote Class Tasks
SCM (software control Management) class tasks
Test class
Visual age for Java class task tasks

Archive class Tasks

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Task Name	Description
BUnzip2	Unzip the file packaged with gzip or BZIP2.
BZip2	Package some files with the gzip or BZIP2 algorithm. This task does not check for dependencies and always produces an output file.
Cab	Generate files in Microsoft CAB format. It runs in the same way as a jar or zip task. This task is raised on the Windows platform with an external tool CABARC (m$ provided), so this tool must be found on the search path.
Ear	An extension of the Jar task with special treatment for files, should end up in an Enterprise application archive.
GUnzip	Unzip one of the gzip files.
Gzip	Pack some files in gzip.
Jar	Package some files in jars.
Jlink	The use of this task is not supported. Instead, use the Zipfileset and Zipgroupfileset properties of the Jar or Zip task.
Manifest	Generate a manifest file.
Rpm	Load the RPM program to build a Linux installation file. This task is currently only running on Linux and on UNIX platforms that support RPM.
Signjar	Use the command line tool Javasign to digitally sign a zip or jar file.
Tar	Generates a tar file.
Unjar	Unzip a jar file.
Untar	Expand a file that is contained in a tar file.
Unwar	Unzip a war file.
Unzip	Unzip a zip file.
War	A extension of the Jar task with special treatment for files that should end up in the Web-inf/lib, web-inf/classes, or W Eb-inf directories of the WEB application Archive.
Zip	Generate a ZIP file.

Audit/coverage Tasks

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Task Name	Description
JDepend	Invokes the JDepend parser. This parser "traverses a set of Java source-file directories and generates design-quality metrics for each Java package".
JProbe	These tasks run the tools from the JProbe suite. This task is written using JProbe Suite Server Side 3.0.
Mmetrics	Computes the metrics of a set of Java source files, using the Metamata metrics/webgain quality Analyzer Source-code Analyz Er, and writes the results to an XML file.
Maudit	Performs static analysis on a set of Java Source-code and Byte-code files, using the Metamata metrics/webgain quality anal Yzer Source-code Analyzer.

Compiling a class task

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Task Name	Description
Depend	Determines which classfiles is out-of-date with respect to their source, removing the classfiles of any other classes tha T depend on the out-of-date classes, forcing the re-compile of the removed classfiles. Typically used in conjunction with the Javac task.
Javac	Compiles the specified source file (s) within the running (ANT) VM, or in another VMS if the fork attribute is specified.
Jspc	Runs the JSP compiler. It can used to precompile JSP pages for fast initial invocation of JSPS pages, deployment on a server without the full J DK installed, or simply to syntax-check the pages without deploying them. The Javac task can be used to compile the generated Java source. (For Weblogic JSP compiles, see the WLJSPC task.)
Netrexxc	Compiles a NetRexx source tree within the running (ANT) VM.
Rmic	Runs the Rmic compiler on the specified file (s).
Wljspc	Compiles JSP pages using Weblogic ' s JSP compiler, WEBLOGIC.JSPC. (For Non-weblogic JSP compiles, see the JSPC task.)

Deployment Tasks

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Task Name	Description
Serverdeploy	Task to run a ' hot ' deployment tool for Vendor-specific EE server.

Documentation Tasks

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Task Name	Description
Javadoc/javadoc2	Generates code documentation using the Javadoc tool. The JAVADOC2 task is deprecated; Use the Javadoc task instead.
Stylebook	Executes the Apache stylebook documentation generator. Unlike the command-line version of this tool, all three arguments is required to run the Stylebook task.

EJB Tasks

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Task Name	Description
EJB Tasks	(See the documentation describing the EJB tasks.)

Execution Tasks

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Task Name	Description
Ant	Runs Ant on a supplied buildfile, optionally passing properties (with possibly new values). This task can is used to build sub-projects.
Antcall	Runs another target within the same buildfile, optionally passing properties (with possibly new values).
Apply/execon	Executes a system command. When the OS attribute was specified, the command was only executed when Ant was run on one of the specified operating systems .
Dependset	This task compares a set of source files with a set of target files. If any of the source files was newer than any of the target files, the "All" target files are removed.
Exec	Executes a system command. When the OS attribute was specified, the command was only executed when Ant was run on one of the specified operating systems .
Java	Executes a Java class within the running (ANT) VM, or in another VMS if the fork attribute is specified.
Parallel	A container task that can contain other Ant tasks. Each nested task specified within the <parallel> tag would be a executed in its own thread.
Sequential	A container task that can contain other Ant tasks. The nested tasks is simply executed in sequence. Its primary use are to support the sequential execution of a subset of the tasks within the <parallel> tag.
Sleep	A task for suspending execution for a specified period of time. Useful when a build or deployment process requires a interval between tasks.
Subant	Calls a given target for all defined sub-builds. This is a extension of ant for bulk project execution.
Waitfor	Blocks execution until a set of specified conditions become true. This task is intended to being used with the Parallel task to synchronize a set of processes.

File Tasks

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Task Name	Description
Attrib	Changes the permissions and/or attributes of a file or all files inside the specified directories. Currently, it had effect only under Windows.
Checksum	Generates a checksum for a file or set of files. This task can also is used to perform checksum verifications.
Chgrp	Changes the group ownership of a file or all files inside the specified directories. Currently, it had effect only under Unix.
Chmod	Changes the permissions of a file or all files inside the specified directories. Currently, it had effect only under Unix. The permissions is also UNIX style, like the arguments for the chmod command.
Chown	Changes the owner of a file or all files inside the specified directories. Currently, it had effect only under Unix.
Concat	Concatenates multiple files into a single one or to Ant ' s logging system.
Copy	Copies a file or Fileset to a new file or directory.
Copydir	Deprecated. Use the Copy task instead.
Copyfile	Deprecated. Use the Copy task instead.
Delete	Deletes either a single file, all files and sub-directories in a specified directory, or a set of files specified by one O R more filesets.
deltree	Deprecated. Use the Delete task instead.
Filter	Sets a token filter for this project, or reads multiple tokens filters from a specified file and sets these as filters. Token filters is used by all tasks that perform file-copying operations.
Fixcrlf	Modifies a file to add or remove tabs, carriage returns, linefeeds, and EOF characters.
Get	Gets a file from a URL.
Mkdir	Creates a directory. Non-existent parent directories is created, when necessary.
Move	Moves a file to a new file or directory, or a set (s) of the file (s) to a new directory.
Patch	Applies a "diff" file to originals.
Rename	Deprecated. Use the Move task instead.
Renameextensions	Deprecated. Use the Move task with a glob mapper instead.
Replace	Replace is a directory-based task for replacing the occurrence of a given string with another string in