

You do this by listing the tasks that constitute each stage. Targets contain tasks: Inside targets you declare what actual work is needed to complete that stage of the build process. This ensures that the source gets compiled before the redistributables are built, and that the redistributable is built before the remote deployment.

Targets can have dependencies on other targets: When declaring a target, you can declare which targets have to be built first. These targets may represent actual outputs of the build, such as a redistributable file, or stages in the build process, such as compiling source or deploying the redistributable file to a remote server. A higher-level build file can coordinate the builds of the subprojects.Įach project contains multiple targets: Within the single project of a build file, you declare the different targets for the build process. Very large projects may be composed of multiple smaller projects, each with its own build file. Rather than spelling out the details of every stage in the build processĪ build file contains one project: Each XML build file includes how to build, test, and deploy one project.

XML format: Ant uses XML files called build files to describe how to build, test, and deploy an applicationĭeclarative syntax: Ant is declarative.
