<p>We have inherited an ant build file but now need to deploy to both 32bit and 64bit systems.</p>

<p>The non-Java bits are done with GNUMakefiles where we just call "uname" to get the info.  Is there a similar or even easier way to mimic this with ant?</p>

You can just pass a parameter into the build file with the value you want. For example, if your target is
```
dist
```
:
```
```
ant -Dbuild.target=32 dist
```
```
or
```
```
ant -Dbuild.target=64 dist
```
```
and then in your Ant build script, take different actions depending on the value of the
```
${build.target}
```
property (you can also use
conditions
to set a default value for the property if it is not set).
Or, you can check the value of the
built-in
system properties
, such as
```
${os.arch}
```
.