I include commands to demonstrate how this works on a command line. I am working with Ant version 1.6.5 and Java 5 on Mac OS X however, the examples in this article should work with any reasonably modern version of Ant and Java on any platform. This article assumes a basic familiarity with Ant. In this article, I will walk you through the basic steps needed to create a custom task for Ant. Fortunately, it is fairly simple to create your own task handler in Java and connect it to Ant to give you that extra little feature only you need. Ant provides well over a hundred different task handlers, and although this is usually sufficient, you may find yourself needing to step beyond Ant’s current abilities: You may need to run some complex post-build verification checks that you want to hide behind a simple lone element, you may need to use arcane options beyond those the standard tasks provide, or you just may want to rot13 your source files… just because. It streamlines weekend hobby development, and it brings automated sanity to very complex, commercial endeavors.

Apache Ant is a great tool to manage your build tasks.

Apache ant parameters cmd