Motivation

Considering Ant build files as code which has to be maintained, it should be documented like other code as well.

Textual Documentation

AntDoc

Antdoc is an automatic Ant script documentation generation, in the same spirit as the must Javadoc. This documentation enables to directly execute Ant build files.

URL

• http://antdoc.free.fr/
  

Articles

Enhance Ant with XSL transformations

Ant is a powerful tool for scripting build processes. When combined with XSLT, Ant's power and flexibility increase dramatically. Here, Jim explains and illustrates this concept using real world examples from his previous experience.

URL

• http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-antxsl/
  

Visual Documentation

Grand

Grand is a tool to create visual representation of ant target dependencies. It works by taking a ant build file and creating a "dot" file. This file need to be post-processed with Graphviz to produce the actual graph.

URL

• http://www.ggtools.net/grand/
• http://www.graphviz.org/
  

Vizant

Vizant is an Apache Ant task to create Graphviz DOT source code from an Ant buildfile. The image created from the DOT source code shows the targets dependency.

URL

• http://vizant.sourceforge.net/
• http://www.graphviz.org/
  

AntGraph

Antgraph generates graphical charts for any Ant buildfile.

URL

• http://www.ericburke.com/downloads/antgraph/
• http://www.graphviz.org/