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Ant - Property Task
Ant build files are written in XML, which does not cater for declaring variables as you do in your favourite programming language. However, as you may have imagined, it would be useful if Ant allowed declaring variables such as project name, project source directory etc.
Ant uses the property element which allows you to specify properties. This allows the properties to be changed from one build to another. or from one environment to another.
By default, Ant provides the following pre-defined properties that can be used in the build file
Properties | Description |
ant.file | The full location of the build file. |
ant.version | The version of the Apache Ant installation. |
basedir | The basedir of the build, as specified in the basedir attribute of the project element. |
ant.java.version | The version of the JDK that is used by Ant. |
ant.project.name | The name of the project, as specified in the name atrribute of the project element |
ant.project.default-target | The default target of the current project |
ant.project.invoked-targets | Comma separated list of the targets that were invoked in the current project |
ant.core.lib | The full location of the ant jar file |
ant.home | The home directory of Ant installation |
ant.library.dir | The home directory for Ant library files - typically ANT_HOME/lib folder. |
Ant also makes the system properties (Example: file.separator) available to the build file.
In addition to the above, the user can define additional properties using the property element. An example is presented below which shows how to define a property called sitename:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<project name="Hello World Project" default="info">
<property name="sitename" value="www.tutorialspoint.com"/>
<target name="info">
<echo>Apache Ant version is ${ant.version} - You are
at ${sitename} </echo>
</target>
</project>
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Running ant on the above build file should produce the following output:
C:\>ant
Buildfile: C:\build.xml
info:
[echo] Apache Ant version is Apache Ant(TM) version 1.8.2
compiled on December 20 2010 - You are at www.tutorialspoint.com
BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 0 seconds
C:\>
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