I'm gonna try and cover the two OS's here so be kind.First things first, goto http://ant.apache.org/bindownload.cgi and download the appropriate archive (zip) file: apache-ant-[VERSION NUMBER HERE]-bin.zip Then for Windows: Extract the .zip to c:\\ant. From the command line set the following environment variables:set ANT_HOME=c:\\antset JAVA_HOME=c:\\jdk-1.5.0.05set PATH=%PATH%;%ANT_HOME%\\bin For Mac: Unpack the zip file to /usr/local/ant/. Then from the command line set the following environment variables:export ANT_HOME=/usr/local/antexport PATH=${PATH}:${ANT_HOME}/binNow open up the Terminal(Mac)/Command line(Win) and just type "ANT" and hit return. You should see:Buildfile: build.xml does not exist!Build failedTo demonstrate calling a file we're gonna create a quick build.xml. Create a new text file, enter the following bit of XML and save it as build.xml If you are on Windows save this file to the root of c:\\ and from the command line run the followingant -buildfile c:\\build.xml
If you are on Mac then just save this to the desktop and from the Terminal run:ant -buildfile ~/desktop/build.xmlYou should now seeBuildfile: {PATH_TO_YOU_BUILD_FILE}build.xmlrunEcho:[echo] Is anybody out thereBUILD SUCCESSFULTotal time: 0 secondsThat's pretty much it, from here you you are now set to run Ant from the Terminal/Command line so in theory you should be able to schedule tasks etc!