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.