About Java build: Ant & Maven

Ant

Ant's hierarchical build script structure is like the following picture.

Ant has a lot of predefined tasks for file system and archiving operations. You can also write your own tasks in java.

Document 1.png

 






  




  


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structures of the above script

some shortcomings

• XML definition is very limited
• need Ivy for dependency management
  ...

Maven

Based on the standard project layout and unified build lifecycle.

Standard Layout

eg. all source code sits in the directory src/main/java

maven default layout

Lifecycle

• compile
• unit test and integration test
• assemble (eg. JAR file)
• deploy to the local repository
• release to remote

Dependency Management

No need to explain.

Shortcoming

• too restrictive
• not stable