How to Install Apache Ant on a Mac

Want to learn how to install ant on mac?

What is Apache Ant used for?

The main known usage of Apache Ant is the build of Java applications. Ant supplies a number of built-in tasks allowing to compile, assemble, test and run Java applications. Ant can also be used effectively to build non Java applications, for instance C or C++ applications.

Ant is pretty useful as a build tool, for Java build tools I would recommend to look into other build tools such as Maven and Gradle.

In the Salesforce use case, we can use the traditional ant tool for metadata deployment. We recommend to look into Salesforce DX for deployments. Other use cases, we still use ant for dataloader jobs if you want to script the CRUD operations.

I created a video for installing apache ant on Mac running on MacOS Sierra and here is the steps to follow along.

How to Install Ant on Mac
  • Download Apache Ant to your desktop and unzip the files
  • Rename the folder to ant
  • Open the Mac Terminal
  • Copy the commands below to move the files to /usr/local directory
sudo mv ~/desktop/ant ~/usr/local/ant
  • Fix the file permission
chown -R root:wheel /usr/local/ant
  • Edit the bash_profile with your favorite editor. I’m using vi editor.
sudo vi .bash_profile
  • Add the path to the Apache Ant bin directory which contains the executable files
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/ant/bin
  • Finally, save and exit your text editor. If using vi editor, hit Esc key to exit editing, then hit command x then !
  • Test out if Apache Ant was successfully installed
ant -v

Other Notes: If you are getting an error when you run any commands:

Unable to locate tools.jar. Expected to find it in /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home/lib/tools.jar
  • This means you do not have the Java JDK installed. Go to java.com and download and install the JDK.
  • After installing the Java JDK.
  • Edit your bash_profile and update the path for the JAVA_HOME.
export JAVA_HOME=$(usr/libexec/java_home)

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