ant - not recognized as an internal

Question

I have installed ant(apache-ant-1.7.0). But when i run the ant command in dos command prompt, it says

‘ant’ is not recognized as an internal or external comm         


        

Answer 1

Don't use Windows GUI for creating environment variables because they can mess up with the system. Easiest and best way to create a variable is creating them as local with a command script. This way they will be local and won't interfare with your system, and easier then using GUI :)

Open up a blank notepad, type the following (in case you are interested in building a Java project I added a JAVA_HOME variable as well). Replace the ant and jdk paths with whatever is correct for your machine

set PATH=%BASEPATH%
set ANT_HOME=c:\tools\apache-ant-1.9-bin
set JAVA_HOME=c:\tools\jdk7x64
set PATH=%ANT_HOME%\bin;%JAVA_HOME%\bin;%PATH%

run the script and check the location with echo %ANT_HOME%.

Answer 2

Two Important Notes on Windows Environment Variables:

• Keep in mind that some processes run at the System level, as opposed to the User level. This is especially true of Services. So if you have a Service that is throwing this error, you may need to edit the System %PATH% variable, not the User one.
• Each process stores a local cache of the environment variables at process launch-time. This means you need to restart the process/service after you make these changes. This includes cmd.exe

Answer 3

That just means it's not on the path.

Edit your PATH environment variable to include Ant's "bin" directory. The exact steps for editing your path with depend on your operating system, but for example on XP:

• Bring up Explorer (Windows-E)
• Right-click on "My Computer" and select "Properties"
• On the "Advanced" tab, click on "Environment Variables"
• If the set of "user variables" already contains a PATH entry, edit that. Otherwise create a new entry. (If you want it to affect all users, set it as a system environment variable.)

• Add the Ant bin directory without any quotes. Use a semi-colon to separate it from another entry. For example, you might have:

  c:\Program Files\Utils;c:\Program Files\Ant 1.7\bin
  

• Start a new Command Prompt to see the changes (they won't affect existing windows)

Answer 4

The best way to build using ANT is in Eclipse. just type Ant in quick access box in Eclipse, Select New Java project from existing build file option. Select the XML file and the Eclipse will build it for you.

Answer 5

Also do not put a space at end of your path entry.

Good: C:\Ninja;C:\ant

Bad: C:\Ninja;C:\ant(sp)

...where (sp) represents a white space or blank. I had this and couldn't figure it out until I saw RichardJohnn's reply and then found it at the end.

Answer 6

In windows:

• ANT_HOME environment variable should be set to your ant install dir. If you haven't such, download ant and unzip it.

In Jenkins configuration

• %ANT_HOME%\bin should be added to PATH
• Go to Jenkins / Manage Jenkins / Configure System / Ant Installation.
  • Uncheck Install Automatically
  • Give name for Ant (AntName)
  • Put ant install dir into ANT_HOME

In Jenkins project

• Got to Project/Configure/Build/Invoke Ant. (Add Build Step/Invoke Ant if you haven't any). In Ant Version change Default to AntName (set by you in the Jenkins configuration)