Apache Ant is a Java-based build tool - like make, but without make's
wrinkles. :-)
Ant is extended using Java classes. The configuration files are
XML-based, calling out a target tree where tasks get executed. Each
task is run by an object that implements a Task interface.
This package is using upstream's recommendation of
ANT_HOME=/usr/share/ant
apache-ant uses `javac` and friends to compile java projects. If you
use the stock 'gcc-java' package, then you will need to export the
JAVA_HOME environment variable, and make it point to the Java5 run-time
provided by the GNU Compiler Collection, e.g.:
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm (for Slackware, 32-bit)
or:
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib64/jvm (for Slackware64)
If you need a more recent Java run-time, then any of the jdk or openjdk
packages from slackbuilds.org will work just fine.