Install Apache Ant 1.8.1 via MacPorts

If the latest version of Apache Ant in MacPorts is not what you're after, you can try to downgrade. Here's how simple it is:

cd ~/tools
svn co http://svn.macports.org/repository/macports/trunk/dports/devel/apache-ant -r 74985
cd apache-ant/
sudo port install

To verify:

# ant -version
# Apache Ant version 1.8.1 compiled on April 30 2010

If you want to get other revisions, see here.

Switch between versions

But wait, there's more! You can even switch between the different versions installed easily. Actually this is what makes the whole process comfortable, no need to store different versions of tools at arbitrary locations...

sudo port activate apache-ant
--->  The following versions of apache-ant are currently installed:
--->      apache-ant @1.8.1_1 (active)
--->      apache-ant @1.8.4_0
--->      apache-ant @1.9.4_0
Error: port activate failed: Registry error: Please specify the full version as recorded in the port registry.

I have these three versions - I used 1.8.4 for the earlier Tomcat build, and 1.8.1 for the Hadoop build (the next post...)

But now that Hadoop is also built on OSX for my work, I switch back to the latest version:

sudo port activate apache-ant@1.9.4_0
--->  Deactivating apache-ant @1.8.1_1
--->  Cleaning apache-ant
--->  Activating apache-ant @1.9.4_0
--->  Cleaning apache-ant

To verify:

ant -version
# Apache Ant(TM) version 1.9.4 compiled on April 29 2014

Neat, huh?