# AntBuilder

version 3.0.19

| Here we describe `AntBuilder` which lets you write Ant build scripts in Groovy rather than XML. You may also be interested in using Groovy from Ant using the Groovy Ant task.

Despite being primarily a build tool, Apache Ant is a very practical tool for manipulating files including zip files, copy, resource processing, and more. But if ever you’ve been working with a `build.xml` file or some Jelly script and found yourself a little restricted by all those pointy brackets, or found it a bit weird using XML as a scripting language and wanted something a little cleaner and more straight forward, then maybe Ant scripting with Groovy might be what you’re after.

Groovy has a helper class called `AntBuilder` which makes the scripting of Ant tasks really easy; allowing a real scripting language to be used for programming constructs (variables, methods, loops, logical branching, classes etc). It still looks like a neat concise version of Ant’s XML without all those pointy brackets; though you can mix and match this markup inside your script. Ant itself is a collection of jar files. By adding them to your classpath, you can easily use them within Groovy as is. We believe using `AntBuilder` leads to more concise and readily understood syntax.

`AntBuilder` exposes Ant tasks directly using the convenient builder notation that we are used to in Groovy. Here is the most basic example, which is printing a message on the standard output:

    def ant = new groovy.ant.AntBuilder()          (1)
    ant.echo('hello from Ant!')         (2)

1 | creates an instance of `AntBuilder`
2 | executes the `echo` task with the message in parameter

Imagine that you need to create a ZIP file. It can be as simple as:

    def ant = new AntBuilder()
    ant.zip(destfile: 'sources.zip', basedir: 'src')

In the next example, we demonstrate the use of `AntBuilder` to copy a list of files using a classical Ant pattern directly in Groovy:

    // let's just call one task
    ant.echo("hello")

    // here is an example of a block of Ant inside GroovyMarkup
    ant.sequential {
        echo("inside sequential")
        def myDir = "target/AntTest/"
        mkdir(dir: myDir)
        copy(todir: myDir) {
            fileset(dir: "src/test") {
                include(name: "**/*.groovy")
            }
        }
        echo("done")
    }

    // now let's do some normal Groovy again
    def file = new File(ant.project.baseDir,"target/AntTest/some/pkg/MyTest.groovy")
    assert file.exists()

Another example would be iterating over a list of files matching a specific pattern:

    // let's create a scanner of filesets
    def scanner = ant.fileScanner {
        fileset(dir:"src/test") {
            include(name:"**/My*.groovy")
        }
    }

    // now let's iterate over
    def found = false
    for (f in scanner) {
        println("Found file $f")
        found = true
        assert f instanceof File
        assert f.name.endsWith(".groovy")
    }
    assert found

Or executing a JUnit test:

    ant.junit {
        classpath { pathelement(path: '.') }
        test(name:'some.pkg.MyTest')
    }

We can even go further by compiling and executing a Java file directly from Groovy:

    ant.echo(file:'Temp.java', '''
        class Temp {
            public static void main(String[] args) {
                System.out.println("Hello");
            }
        }
    ''')
    ant.javac(srcdir:'.', includes:'Temp.java', fork:'true')
    ant.java(classpath:'.', classname:'Temp', fork:'true')
    ant.echo('Done')

It is worth mentioning that `AntBuilder` is included in Gradle, so you can use it in Gradle just like you would in Groovy. Additional documentation can be found in the Gradle manual.