Level: Introductory Andrew Glover (aglover@stelligent.com), President, Stelligent Incorporated
27 May 2008 Gant is a highly versatile build framework that leverages both Groovy and Apache Ant to let you implement programmatic logic while using all of Ant's capabilities. In this tutorial, Andy Glover guides you step-by-step through Gant's fundamental concepts. You'll learn how to define behavior in your build through Gant's flexible domain-specific language, how to reuse Ant features, and how to define functions that make your builds more efficient and even proactive.
In this tutorial
In this tutorial, you'll get to know Gant, a build framework that leverages both Groovy and Apache's Ant to produce a highly versatile medium that lets you implement programmatic logic while reusing all of Ant's functionality. When you are done with the tutorial, you will understand the benefits of using Gant for
building software, and you'll be set to start using Gant in your everyday Java™ development.
Objectives - Define behavior in your build through Gant's flexible domain-specific language (DSL)
- Reuse Ant
- Define functions that enable reuse and even proactivity within your builds
Prerequisites
To get the most from this tutorial, you should be familiar with Java syntax and the
basic concepts of object-oriented development on the Java platform. You should be
familiar with Ant as well. In addition, it is highly recommended that you read the tutorial "Fluently Groovy"
also by Andrew Glover.
System requirements
To follow along and try out the code for this tutorial, you need a working
installation of either: You'll also need to install Groovy and Gant. The tutorial text includes detailed instructions for those installations. The recommended system configuration for this tutorial is:
- A system supporting either the Sun JDK 1.5.0_09 (or later) or the IBM JDK 1.5.0 SR3 with at least 500MB of main memory
- At least 20MB of disk space to install the software components and examples covered
The instructions and examples in the tutorial are based on a Microsoft®
Windows® operating system. All the tools covered in the tutorial also work on
Linux® and UNIX systems.
To view the demos included in this tutorial, JavaScript must be enabled in your browser and Macromedia Flash Player 6 or higher must be installed. You can download the latest Flash Player at http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer/.
Duration
1 hour
Formats html, pdf
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