Ant 2.0 feature request: Generalized path handling

[Arent Gr�bner]

In next-generation Ant I would like to see a more general path handling.   Consider the following fragment:     <target name="compile">     <javac srcdir="${src.dir}"       <classpath refid="classpath-home" />       <exclude name="**/_*"/>     </javac>   </target>   We see here three types of path specifications:   1) <javac srcdir="${src.dir}" ... /> 2) <classpath refid="classpath-home" /> 3) <exclude name="**/_*"/>   I will call the three types:   1) DIRECT 2) REFERENCE 3) FILTER   All three types eventually evaluate to a path or set of paths (I assume there are even more ant statements that evaluate to a path). The bad thing with this-generation ant is, some targets accept DIRECT paths, some FILTER paths, some DIRECT and REFERENCE paths  (you name the combination).   It would be much more logical (and convenient), if we could use EVERY path-evaluating statement in EVERY place. This feature would not conflict with the current getter-setter-idiom if we would do some kind of preprocessing before passing the paths to a target implementation.   - Arent