Andhey, if you really need to execute a shell command, Ant has an task thatallows different commands to be executed based on the OS it is executingon.

name foo -exec rm `, but itgives you the ability to be cross-platform-to work anywhere andeverywhere. Granted, this removes some of the expressive power that is inherent in beingable to construct a shell command such as `find. Each task is run by an object that implements a particularTask interface.

Instead of writing shell commands,the configuration files are XML-based, calling out a target tree where varioustasks get executed. Instead of a model where it is extended with shell-basedcommands, Ant is extended using Java classes. Tools like Jam took care of this to a great degree, butstill have yet another format to use and remember.Īnt is different. 'Is my command not executingbecause I have a space in front of my tab?!!' said the original author ofAnt way too many times. Anybody who has worked on them for anytime has run into the dreaded tab problem. Why another build tool when there is already make, gnumake, nmake, jam,andothers? Because all those tools have limitations that Ant's original authorcouldn't live with when developing software across multiple platforms.Make-liketools are inherently shell-based: they evaluate a set of dependencies,then execute commands not unlike what you would issue on a shell.This means that youcan easily extend these tools by using or writing any program for the OS thatyou are working on however, this also means that you limit yourself to the OS,or at least the OS type, such as Unix, that you are working on. In theory, it is kind of like make, without make's wrinkles.

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