Apache Ant Best Practices
- Aims of This Chapter
- Property Files
- Ant ClearCase Integration
- Project Support
- Summary
This chapter looks in more detail at some best practices for using Ant on real projects. First I describe the use of property files to enable configuration of the build process depending on a user's role and requirements. I then describe how best to integrate Ant with IBM Rational ClearCase. Finally, I look at some general best practices for supporting the build process on large projects.
Aims of This Chapter
Apache Ant is a powerful build tool with significant built-in capabilities. However, a few capabilities and best practices stand out; they are described here. After reading this chapter, you will be able to
- Understand what Ant property files are and how they can be used to make build scripts more maintainable.
- Understand how to use Ant's capabilities to better integrate with IBM Rational ClearCase.
- Implement Ant build files that support reuse and maintainability on large projects.
This chapter assumes that you are familiar with the basic concepts of Apache Ant that were discussed in Chapter 4, "Defining Your Build and Release Scripts."