How To Run build.xml?

[JiaPei Jen]

I have installed the Ant in my machine. And I have
set ANT_HOME=C:\apache-ant-1.5.3-1
set JAVA_HOME=C:\j2sdk1.4.1_02
set PATH=%PATH%;%ANT_HOME%/bin
There is a build.xml file bundled with an application that I have downloaded over the internet. How do I run this build.xml file?

[Andres Gonzalez]

ant <yourTarget>
if you have a different XML file with targets, you can use:
ant -f <yourXMLFile> <yourTarget>

[JiaPei Jen]

Please bear with me. What is MyXMLFile? What is MyTarget? And where should I type the command "ant <MyTarget>"?
The location of this build.xml is located in the NameOfTheApplication/WEB-INF/src folder. It is an application with lots of servlets, jsps, xml files, and property files in different directories.

[Andres Gonzalez]

Sorry for confusing you
let's start from the beginning. If you located your build.xml file, open it.
you usually have many targets in your file, such as:

<font size="2">
  <property file="build.properties" />
  <!-- Delete generated files and directories -->  
  <[B]target[/B] name="clean">
    <delete dir="${reports}"/>
  </target>
</font>

This is only an example, notice that you can have many targets. If you can identify one target from your XML file, you can execute it by using:
ant <targetName>
So, I would do:
C:\>ant clean
this target will delete my directory report.
Now, when projects grow you might want to create separate build files, just to organize things better. you can have a build.xml, scripts.xml, reports.xml, etc.
if you do not specify anything (like ant clean), then ant will look for the default XML build file (build.xml). But, if you want to tell Ant to use a different file, you use the -f flag.
C:\>ant -f reports.xml clean
hope it helps
P.S. For simplicity, open a DOS prompt and locate the directory in which your build.xml is placed. In my example, I assumed that build.xml was in my C:\ root.
let us know how it goes
[ September 08, 2003: Message edited by: Andres Gonzalez ]