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How to run `ant` build-script without setting any environment variable?

I would like to run the ant build-script without installing Java and setting any environment variable like path, JAVA_HOME & ANT_HOME to environment variable.
I have copied already installed folders of Jdk-1.7u17, Jre-1.7u17 and apache-ant-1.9.0 from one machine to another machine into C:\buildscript_required_files_v2 folder.
Now i have a window batch file that gets into the path where build.xml resides and run ant
cd VersionBuild
C:\buildscript_required_files_v2\apache-ant-1.9.0\bin\ant
build.xml complies the Java class and creates a Jar file.
<project name="VersionBuild" default="clean" basedir=".">
<description>
simple example build file
</description>
<!-- set global properties for this build -->
<target name="init">
<!-- Create the time stamp -->
<tstamp/>
<!-- Create the build directory structure used by compile -->
</target>
<target name="CompilingBuildversion" depends="init"
description="compile the source " >
<!-- Compile the java code from ${src} into ${build} -->
<C:\buildscript_required_files_v2\java\jdk64\bin\javac.exe srcdir="." destdir="."/>
</target>
<target name="Creating jar" depends="CompilingBuildversion">
<jar jarfile="VersionBuild.jar" basedir="."/>
</target>
<target name="clean" depends="Creating jar">
</target>
</project>
when I am running that bach file, I am getting the following exception -
Unable to locate tools.jar. Expected to find it in C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\li
b\tools.jar
Can I run ant build-script without installing Java and setting any environment variable? Can i specify JAVA_HOME for ant locally into the build.xml so ant can take refrence from C:\buildscript_required_files_v2 folder?

You problem is not concerned with *_HOME variables, but I first answer you question.
Yes you can.
Just configure your PATH variable to (1) dir where java.exe resides (2) where ant.bat resides.
In case when *_HOME defined the path can be written:
PATH=...;%JAVA_HOME%\bin;%ANT_HOME%
Since you have no such variables you need declare:
PATH=...;C:\Program Files\Java\bin;c:\ant\bin
But in real you problem that you try use JRE while ant needs JDK. Just download from oracle site. tools.jar is part of JDK but not JRE.
UPDATE:
You can write you own bat file that lets Windows know where to locate .exe and .bat files. Just create in notepad text file named my-ant.bat And place following there:
set JAVA_HOME=C:\buildscript_required_files_v2\java\jdk64
set PATH=%PATH%;%JAVA_HOME%\bin;C:\buildscript_required_files_v2\apache-ant-1.9.0\bin
rem ** Now we invoke ant **
ant
Obviously you would like manipulate with command line arguments. That is why instead of last ant line use following:
set my_ant_start=
:setupArgs
if ""%1""=="""" goto doneStart
set my_ant_start=%my_ant_start% %1
shift
goto setupArgs
:doneStart
rem ** Now we invoke ant **
ant %my_ant_start%

Ant build using two projects

I have two separate projects inside of eclipse: "project" and "pinclude"
Project includes pinclude, so without somehow include the java files for that project inside of my build.xml, javac will always return errors.
How do I got about including .class files inside of ant/javac? I've tried searching for a solution, but so far I've only came up with ways of adding jar files. Would creating a jar of all the "pinclude" .class files fix my problem?.
Thank you for your help.
NOTE:
I'm sorry for the poor naming convention; These are just projects I made to figure out this problem out.
Also, please ignore srcdir and destdit, they are not important.
Build.xml
<project name="project" basedir="." default="dist" >
<target name="dist" >
<javac destdir="bin"
srcdir="${basedir}\myfileslocation\" >
</javac>
</target>

How do I got about including .class files inside of ant/javac? I've
tried searching for a solution, but so far I've only came up with ways
of adding jar files. Would creating a jar of all the "pinclude" .class
files fix my problem?.
Yes. It helps to separate functionality into smaller modules. If you export one project (pinclude in this case) into a jar and import(via classpath) in another , that is the most correct step.

I'm not 100% sure what you need. Are you saying that you have class files from pininclude, and you need to include them in your <javac> compile task? It would be something like this:
<javac destdir="bin"
srcdir="${basedir}/myfileslocation">
<classpath>
<pathelement path="${path.to.pininclude.javac.files}"/>
</classpath>
</javac>

Setting Class-Path in Ant build script

I'm trying to build my console application and I'm using Ant to build it. I can run my application in Eclipse, but when I try to run it from jar that I get - the ClassNotFoundException: is thrown. is in one of jars, that I use for my application. Here is a part of build.xml where I create manifest:
<manifest>
<attribute name="Main-Class" value="com.package.Reporter" />
<attribute name="Class-Path" value="lib/commons-httpclient-3.1.jar
lib/commons-logging-api.jar
...lot of jars...
lib/stax-api-1.0.1.jar" />
</manifest>
The required class is in commons-httpclient-3.1.jar
And here is how I set up classpath for compiling, that is fine:
<path id="libs.dir">
<fileset dir="lib" includes="**/*.jar"/>
</path>
UPD: Should I put jars with libs to my jar? Now I'm putting them to "lib" directory of my jar. So myjar.jar contains package with my classes, META-INF directory and lib directory.

Max, you can't insert jar libs into jar, assuming normal usage. Either you don't have to specify them manually at runtime as Romski suggested. When invoking java -jar myjar.jar it should locate all your jars provided that they are located in the lib directory. lib directory must be in the same directory that jar resides in. Doesn't matter if you call java executable directly or through ant java task.
Note that the current directory doesn't matter only the relation between the jar and the lib.
Now being overly explicit. Perform sanity test as follows: create a new tmp directory and copy files to it:
tmp/myjar.jar
tmp/lib/commons-httpclient-3.1.jar
Run java -jar tmp/myjar.jar
Edit: now I see I just wrote the same what is in Oracle jar tutorial. But I also made tests myself with a relative directory. I also see dozens of stackoverflow questions searching for jar in jar so please first search SO, then ask.

try to change the path like this.
<path id="libs.dir">
<fileset dir="./lib" includes="**/*.jar"/>
</path>

You need the manifestclasspath task.
Example:
Ant - how to get all files' name in a specific folder

How to add resources to classpath

How do you add a folder (e.g. a resource folder containing arts) to the classpath of a netbeans project? I managed to do that manually via editing the NB generated jar file of the project (that is its MANIFEST.MF file + copying the resources manually), but there should be a way to tell netbeans as well to mind the resources, no?
The folder structure looks like this:
/project/art/
/project/dist/lib/
/project/dist/art/
/project/dist/project.jar
/project/lib/
/project/src/
I don't want to package the art into the jar because I'd like the art to be easily exchangeable. If I add the art folder to the src folder then NB compiles fine, but the art resources end up in the jar.
Adding the art folder to the netbeans project libraries (Properties -> Libraries -> Add JAR/Folder) seemed not to work, because then I ended up with an error '...\project\art is a directory or can't be read. Not copying the libraries.' which in turn prevents even the real libraries folder from being copied.
Any ideas?
Best regards
Chris
2 Observations made, based on the comments from gpeche:
a) Rather specifying the additional resources folder in the "Run" tab than in the "Compile" tab of the project properties -> Libraries doesn't seem to make a lot of difference in Netbeans (I'm currently using 6.9.1). The output (and thus error) stays the same, that is nothing gets copied at all:
Created dir: C:\Users\Chrisi\Desktop\vocabulary\VocabularyTrainer\dist
C:\Users\Chrisi\Desktop\vocabulary\VocabularyTrainer\art is a directory or can't be read. Not copying the libraries.
Not copying the libraries.
Building jar: C:\Users\Chrisi\Desktop\vocabulary\VocabularyTrainer\dist\VocabularyTrainer.jar
Another interesting aspect is that in the help menu of the Libraries panel nothing is explicitly mentioned regarding folders as libraries. Could it be possible, that the button in Netbeans is falsely named, that is only real jar's are allowed?
b) Adding the resources folder to the Libraries list does have the impact though, to add another entry to the MANIFEST.MF. While - and that's the smaller issue - the classpath entry seems to be always expecting the resource folder to be a subfolder of the library folder (e.g. "lib/arts") the major problem is that there seems to be a slash missing.
As mentioned the NB generated entry in the MANIFEST.MF will look like this "lib/arts" (which does not work for me), while (manually set) "lib/arts/" does?!
The way I use resources from the folder is something like this:
URL resource = getClass().getResource("/gui/refresh.png");
ImageIcon tmp = new ImageIcon(resource);
Edit:
Based on Tushars comment and this posting I found the following solution to be an acceptable tradeoff between functionality and comfort.
I override the ANT target from the auto generated 'build-impl.xml' file which creates the Class-Path in the MANIFEST.MF file in the basic 'build.xml' file of the Netbeans project. The code which goes to the 'build.xml' file looks like this:
<property name="art.classpath" value="art/" />
<target name="-post-jar">
<mkdir dir="${dist.dir}/art"/>
<copy todir="${dist.dir}/art">
<fileset dir="${basedir}/art">
<!-- <exclude name="**/!source/**"/> if you want to exclude something... -->
</fileset>
</copy>
</target>
<target name="-init-macrodef-copylibs">
<macrodef name="copylibs" uri="http://www.netbeans.org/ns/j2se-project/3">
<element name="customize" optional="true"/>
<sequential>
<property location="${build.classes.dir}" name="build.classes.dir.resolved"/>
<pathconvert property="run.classpath.without.build.classes.dir">
<path path="${run.classpath}"/>
<map from="${build.classes.dir.resolved}" to=""/>
</pathconvert>
<pathconvert pathsep=" " property="jar.classpath">
<path path="${run.classpath.without.build.classes.dir}"/>
<chainedmapper>
<flattenmapper/>
<globmapper from="*" to="lib/*"/>
</chainedmapper>
</pathconvert>
<taskdef classname="org.netbeans.modules.java.j2seproject.copylibstask.CopyLibs" classpath="${libs.CopyLibs.classpath}" name="copylibs"/>
<copylibs compress="${jar.compress}" index="${jar.index}" jarfile="${dist.jar}" manifest="${manifest.file}" runtimeclasspath="${run.classpath.without.build.classes.dir}">
<fileset dir="${build.classes.dir}"/>
<manifest>
<attribute name="Class-Path" value="${jar.classpath} ${art.classpath}"/>
<customize/>
</manifest>
</copylibs>
</sequential>
</macrodef>
</target>
The tradeoff is that for development in Netbeans I still have to add the resource folder (e.g. 'art') to the libraries list to make the project run in Netbeans. This will cause an additional entry in the MANIFEST.MF file ('lib/art') along with the effect that the libraries will not get automatically copied to the 'dist' folder, with the message
...\art is a directory or can't be read. Not copying the libraries.
Not copying the libraries.
This behavor is - afaik - intended (to force everything to be bundled up in a jar), even though there are discussions about it going on. To make a real distribution bundle I'd have to take away the resource folder(s) from the library list in NB and rebuild.
Ideas about a more streamlined setup without any tradeoffs are of course still welcome. :)

Adding resource folder to classpath:
When you Clean-&-Build a NetBeans Ant Based Project it creates a manifest.mf file in the root directory of the project. This file gets included in the JAR file also. Modify this file and add entry like follows:
Manifest-Version: 1.0
X-COMMENT: Main-Class will be added automatically by build
Class-Path: arts/
slash is important after arts in the class path.
Including the arts resource folder in the distribution
Either copy this folder in the dist folder after the build or add a ANT target to copy the required resources in the dist folder.
Add the target like as follows in the build.xml file:
<target name="-post-jar">
<mkdir dir="${dist.dir}/resources"/>
<copy todir="${dist.dir}/resources">
<fileset dir="${basedir}/resources" />
</copy>
</target>
Code to access such resources:
The code needed to access such resource files shall be as follows: (This will not work in design time but surely from the JAR file)
// pay attention to relative path
URL resource = ClassLoader.getSystemResource("gui/refresh.png");
ImageIcon tmp = new ImageIcon(resource);
NOTE: The files manifest.mf and build.xml located in the root directory of the project are accessible from the Files Panel in NetBeans IDE

Using NetBeans 8.0.2:
Right-click the project.
Select Properties.
Select Sources.
Click Add Folder for the Source Package Folders.
Select the the directory where the resources exist.
Click Open on the directory name.
Click OK to close the Project Properties dialog.
The resources are added to the project.
You'll see the directory added in your Navigation pane as well
In the other project, the resources are now available. For example, to read an image:
BufferedImage zero = ImageIO.read(OCR.class.getResourceAsStream("/0.bmp"));

In order to remove the lib/art from Class-Path and not get "is a directory or can't be read" need delete lib/art from path:
<pathconvert property="run.classpath.without.build.classes.dir">
<path path="${run.classpath}"/>
<map from="${build.classes.dir.resolved}" to=""/>
**<map from="${basedir}/art" to=""/> <!-- remove art from lib -->**
</pathconvert>

Java: How to compile a runnable jar from packages?

My Java application has got a package structure similar to this:
src/com/name/app
src/com/name/app/do
src/com/name/utils/db
How would I go about compiling Java files in these directories in to a runnable jar? I need to package required libraries into the generated JAR (jdbc).
I've always done these things in Eclipse but now I need to supply a couple of people with a way to compile the repository without the use of eclipse and I was thinking of making a makefile or a script that invokes the necessary javac pattern.

Take a look at Ant. It's a relatively simple build tool to understand, and provides everything that meets your requirements. Here's a quick skeleton build.xml to get you started:
<project name="my_app_name" default="jar">
<target name="compile">
<javac srcdir="src" destdir="bin">
<classpath>
<fileset dir="lib">
<include name="**/*.jar" />
</fileset>
</classpath>
</javac>
</target>
<target name="jar">
<jar manifest="manifest_file" destfile="dist/my_app_name.jar">
<fileset dir="bin" />
<fileset dir="lib" />
</jar>
</target>
You need to create a manifest file that will tell the java process which class holds the "main" method. Here is a good place to start learning about manifests.
As an alternate that produces really cluttered Ant build files, you can right click on your Eclipse project and choose "Export...", then choose "General > Ant Buildfiles".
Anyway, that should get you started. You can ask more specific questions as you run into them.

First of all, consider using Ant for such a task.
But since you asked for a manual process, you need to first create a manifest file, like so:
Manifest-Version: 1.0
Created-By: 1.6.0 (Sun Microsystems Inc.)
Class-Path: lib/jdbc.jar lib/otherlib.jar
Main-Class: com.name.app.MainClass
Replace the contents of Class-Path with your libs, and Main-Class with the fully qualified name of your main class.
Then, you need to generate the actual .jar, using the following command:
jar cfm app.jar MANIFEST.MF src/com/name/app/*.class src/com/name/app/do/*.class
Where MANIFEST.MF is the previously mentioned manifest file, and the rest is the folders where your .java classes lie in.
Finally, to run your app, you simply execute: java -jar app.jar.

Consider using Ant to do this. http://ant.apache.org/

I recommend that you use Apache Ant to implement your build scripts.
If implemented correctly, Ant is easy to use and the build scripts can be run on any platform that you can install a JDK on. Indeed, with a little bit of work, you can even set up your project so that users don't even need to download / install Ant. (Hint: add the Ant JAR files and a wrapper script to your project distro)