Step 4: Install Apache Ant

If you will be doing all of your development from Eclipse, you can skip to the next section. If you wish to develop using command-line build tools, you need to install Apache Ant. You may have this installed already from previous Java development work, as it is fairly common in Java projects. However, you need Ant version 1.8.1 or later, so check your current copy (e.g., ant -version).

If you do not have Ant or do not have the correct version, you can obtain it from the Apache Ant web site, at http://ant.apache.org/. Full installation instructions are available in the Ant manual, but the basic steps are as follows:

1. Unpack the ZIP archive in a logical place on your machine.
2. Add a JAVA_HOME environment variable, pointing to where your JDK is installed, if you do not have one already.