Using standalone


Ivy can be used as a standalone program very easily. All you need is a java 1.4+ runtime environment (JRE)!

Then here is how to call it: 
java -jar ivy.jar -?
It will display an online help like this: 
==== settings options
 -settings <settingsfile>     use given file for settings
 -cache <cachedir>            use given directory for cache
 -novalidate                  do not validate ivy files against xsd
 -m2compatible                use maven2 compatibility

==== resolve options
 -ivy <ivyfile>               use given file as ivy file
 -dependency <organisation> <module> <revision>
                              use this instead of ivy file to do the rest of the
                               work with this as a dependency.
 -confs <configurations>      resolve given configurations

==== retrieve options
 -retrieve <retrievepattern>  use given pattern as retrieve pattern
 -sync                        use sync mode for retrieve

==== cache path options
 -cachepath <cachepathfile>   outputs a classpath consisting of all dependencies
                               in cache (including transitive ones) of the given
                               ivy file to the given cachepathfile

==== deliver options
 -deliverto <ivypattern>      use given pattern as resolved ivy file pattern

==== publish options
 -publish <resolvername>      use given resolver to publish to
 -publishpattern <artpattern> use given pattern to find artifacts to publish
 -revision <revision>         use given revision to publish the module
 -status <status>             use given status to publish the module

==== http auth options
 -realm <realm>               use given realm for HTTP AUTH
 -host <host>                 use given host for HTTP AUTH
 -username <username>         use given username for HTTP AUTH
 -passwd <passwd>             use given password for HTTP AUTH

==== launcher options
 -main <main>                 the FQCN of the main class to launch
 -args <args>                 the arguments to give to the launched process
 -cp <cp>                     extra classpath to use when launching process

==== message options
 -debug                       set message level to debug
 -verbose                     set message level to verbose
 -warn                        set message level to warn
 -error                       set message level to error

==== help options
 -?                           display this help
 -deprecated                  show deprecated options
since 1.3 System properties are included as ivy variables, so you can easily define an ivy variable like this: 
java -Dmyivyvar=myvalue org.apache.ivy.Main [parameters]

Examples

java -jar ivy.jar
calls ivy with default configuration using ivy.xml in the current dir
java -jar ivy.jar -settings path/to/myivysettings.xml -ivy path/to/myivy.xml
calls ivy with given ivysettings file using given ivy file
since 1.3 
java -jar ivy.jar -settings path/to/myivysettings.xml -dependency apache commons-lang 2.0
calls ivy with given ivysettings file and resolve apache commons-lang 2.0.

This is equivalent to: 
java -jar ivy.jar -settings path/to/myivysettings.xml -ivy ivy.xml
with ivy.xml like this: 
<ivy-module version="1.0">
  <info organisation="org"
       module="standalone"
       revision="working"
   />
  <dependencies>
    <dependency org="apache" name="commons-lang" rev="2.0" conf="default->*"/>
  </dependencies>
</ivy-module>
since 1.3 
java -jar ivy.jar -settings path/to/myivysettings.xml -ivy path/to/myivy.xml -cachepath mycachefile.txt
calls ivy with given ivysettings file and resolve the dependencies found in the given ivy file, and then output the classpath of resolved artifacts in cache in a file. This file can then be used to define a classpath corresponding to all the resolved dependencies for any java program.

since 1.4 
java -jar ivy.jar -settings path/to/myivysettings.xml -dependency bar foo 2.0 -main org.bar.foo.FooMain
calls ivy with given ivysettings file and resolve bar foo 2.0, and then run org.foo.FooMain class with the resolved artifacts as classpath