9.1. Apache Ant

Apache Ant (http://ant.apache.org/) is a tool for automating software build processes. It is similar to make, but is implemented in Java and uses XML to describe the build process, whereas make uses its own Makefile format. Ant is a project of the Apache Software Foundation (http://www.apache.org/licenses/).

The main benefit of Ant over make and other tools is its portability. Ant itself is available on many different platforms, and the format of Ant’s build files is platform-independent.