Error executing command 'ant' on Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks when building for Android with PhoneGap/Cordova

Question

Today I tried PhoneGap/Cordova with Mac OS X Mavericks. Building for iOS went just fine, but building for Android wasn't without some guesswork.

I installed Android 4.2.2 via the Android SDK Manager (I had to use the older API v17 since it wasn't compatible with a newer one), added the PATH environment variables for the SDK's platform-tools and tools and thought I was ready to take off by running the command:

phonegap run android

Nevertheless, I got the following error:

[phonegap] detecting Android SDK environment...
[phonegap] using the local environment
[phonegap] adding the Android platform...
[error] An error occured during creation of android sub-project. ERROR : executing command 'ant', make sure you have ant installed and added to your path.

Answer 1

The error message proved to be true as Apache Ant isn't in the path of Mac OS X Mavericks anymore.

Bulletproof solution:

1. Download and install Homebrew by executing following command in terminal:

   ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

2. Install Apache Ant via Homebrew by executing

   brew install ant

Run the PhoneGap build again and it should successfully compile and install your Android app.

Answer 2

You can install ANT through macports or homebrew.

But if you want to do without 3rd party package managers, the problem can simply be fixed by downloading the binary release from the apache ANT web site and adding the binary to your system PATH.

---

For example, on Mountain Lion, in ~/.bash_profile and ~/.bashrc my path was setup like this:

export ANT_HOME="/usr/share/ant"
export PATH=$PATH:$ANT_HOME/bin

So after uncompressing apache-ant-1.9.2-bin.tar.bz2 I moved the resulting directory to /usr/share/ and renamed it ant.

Simple as that, the issue is fixed.

---

Note Don't forget to sudo chown -R root:wheel /usr/share/ant

Answer 3

As an alternative to homebrew, you could download and install macports. Once you have macports, you can use:

sudo port install apache-ant

Answer 4

it don't needed port and brew! because you have android sdk package.

.1 edit your .bash_profile

export ANT_HOME="[your android_sdk_path/eclipse/plugins/org.apache.ant_1.8.3.v201301120609]" 

// its only my org.apache.ant version, check your org.apache.ant version

export PATH=$PATH:$ANT_HOME/bin

.2 make ant command that can executed

chmod 770 [your ANT_HOME/bin/ant]

.3 test if you see below message. that's success!

command line execute: ant

Buildfile: build.xml does not exist!

Build failed

Answer 5

I encountered the same issue when trying to use Cordova. Turns out I already had brew, try which brew, but it was outdated. So, I had to update it first:

1. Update brew: brew update
2. Install Apache Ant: brew install ant

Answer 6

In my case, I have macport installed already. I simply updated my macport:

sudo port selfupdate

sudo port upgrade outdated

Then install apache-ant:

sudo port install apache-ant

Finally, I add ant to my alias list in my .bash_profile:

alias ant='/opt/local/bin/ant'

Then you are all set.

Answer 7

For OSX your path needs to include /Users/yourusername

their example: /Development/adt-bundle/sdk/platform-tools
needs to be: /Users/yourusername/Development/adt-bundle/sdk/platform-tools