On Tue, Dec 05, 2000 at 12:30:33AM +1100, Conor MacNeill wrote:
>
> <property name="foo">
> <string value="hello"/>
> </property>
>
> A little verbose at first glance, compared with the current usage. In
> any case, we are also going to need to decide the future of the ${}
> syntax (too late to change it, IMHO) and what it would mean for
> non-string properties (equivalent to toString() method, perhaps)
>
I think that is a fine approach, and then you could extend it to allow
the ${} syntax to essentially be like a pointer or an import of other
data structures. That is, an Ant equivalent of an XML reference. So
you could do this:
<property name="basic-compile">
<javac srcdir="${src.dir}"
destdir="${build.classes}"
debug="on"
deprecation="off"
optimize="on" />
</property>
<target name="main">
<echo message="Running: ${basic-compile}"/>
${basic-compile}
</target>
In the <echo> case the "toString()" method is called. In the
stand-alone case it gets expanded into the underlying data structure.
I'm just thinking out loud here, so I don't really know if it is a
good idea or not, but just a thought.
sim
