Apache Ant/XML Summary
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[edit] Brief Overview of XML
This chapter has a summary of the things you need to know about XML to use Apache Ant. It is not a lot of information and users that are already familiar with HTML will pick up the concepts very quickly.
You do not need to know a lot about XML to use Ant. Just a few syntaxical items.
First, you must be very careful to match up the "begin" and "end" tags. Begin tags start with a "<" and end tags have the same name but start with a "</". Here is an simple example:
<MyDataElement>
Data Inside…
</MyDataElement>
Train your eye to look for the </ that ends a tag. If it does not match up something is wrong. Tags that do not match up will cause errors.
[edit] Data Element Nesting
All XML Data Elements must be paired using matching start and end tags:
<Parent_XML_Element>
<Child_XML_Element>
<Sub_Child_XML_Element>
</Sub_Child_XML_Element>
</Child_XML_Element>
</Parent_XML_Element >
Understanding this paired nesting structure is critical to creating working Ant build files.
[edit] XML Attributes
The XML begin tag may also have attributes.
<MyTag attribute1="nothing" attribute2="nothing else">Text</MyTag>
