Difference between Ant build & DOS-Batch file?

Question

HI All,
I want to know why for java projects build we are using Ant build. Why can't everyone use a batch file for compiling and make a EAR file....????
Please tell me ???

Regards,
Rajiv.S

Answer 1

EAR files are compressed in the JAR format. They also contain specific MANIFEST files that contain properties of the build. ANT builds are very powerful in that you can script many features into the build, such as filtering the files that go into the build based on their date. I am not aware of any ability to do this with batch files.

Answer 2

Apache Ant is a software tool for automating software build processes. It is similar to make but is implemented using the Java language, requires the Java platform, and is best suited to building Java projects.



The most immediately noticeable difference between Ant and make is that Ant uses XML to describe the build process and its dependencies, whereas make has its Makefile format. By default the XML file is named build.xml.



Ant is an Apache project. It is open source software, and is released under the Apache Software License.



In DOS, OS/2, and Microsoft Windows, a batch file is a text file containing a series of commands intended to be executed by the command interpreter. When a batch file is run, the shell program (usually COMMAND.COM or cmd.exe) reads the file and executes its commands, normally line-by-line. Batch files are useful for running a sequence of executables automatically and are often used by system administrators to automate tedious processes. Unix-like operating systems (such as Linux) have a similar type of file called a shell script.

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Answer 3

Dos stands for Disk Operating System. It is nothing to do with Microsoft, apart from they developed their own version called MSDos (MicrosoftDos). The first DOS was developed by IBM in the 1960’s. There are several ‘flavours’ of DOS but the prevalent one, just like the O/S’s is Microsoft. As for batch files, they are system commands written in a text editor such as notepad and saved with a .bat extension. In DOS, OS/2, and Microsoft Windows, a batch file is a text file of commands intended to be executed by the command interpreter. Originally, before the introduction of GUI’s (Graphical User Interface) .bat files were used to automate tasks. It is first program run after boot being responsible for setting up the system by running the AUTOEXEC.BAT.