Welcome to AntWeave
AntWeave is an implementation of the NoWeb literate programming system. Rather than use a standalone program (as the original one did) it is based on a Java and XML/XSL approach and runs as a task within the Jakarta Ant™ build system. By using this approach it is completely universal on any system that supports Ant (and by implication Java and Java-XML). It removes the necessity to build system specific versions of the original noweave and notangle processors; which can be a tricky process when starting from scratch without the required binaries.
The original NoWeb is distributed as a set of source files to be built on the destination system. There are also some binary distributions that run on specific operating systems, notably Linux and Windows variants. However there are some systems where a binary distribution is not available and a manual build from the source is not possible without considerable knowledge. Unfortunately the source distribution is based on NoWeb files so there is a mild "Catch-22" from not being able to generate the code files from the NoWeb source because there is no binary of the notangle application, and you cannot generate the binary until the code files are produced. It is possible to modify the build process by building the notangle binary by hand, but it somewhat time-consuming.
It was because of this rather onerous task of hand building that AntWeave was developed, allowing a more universal approach through Java and XSL. Rather than have it as a stand-alone application as the original, an Ant task seemed more suitable since NoWeb it is nearly always used as part of a build process.
AntWeave is free to all but it is experimental software and should be treated with respect. If anyone gets any use out of it then please send me an Email.
