Damn! Just realized I posted this to ant-user instead of ant-dev. Sorry about that ...
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I've been following this discussion and just saw Bruce Atherton's post about using DSTAMP and TSTAMP to time portions of builds, and this triggered a thought.
We on the list seem to be agreeing that properties should all be immutable.
But should they all be global? (or at least, should they be globally accessible from whenever they were first set, or should their lifetime be limited/limitable?)
It seems to me that the question of "Should we be able to change a property after it has been set?" is different to "Where should we be able to use this property?"
I have a suggestion: How about adding a new attribute to target specifying local-properties that works as follows:
- When the target is invoked, an exception is raised if any of the properties are already set (preserve property immutability, and ensure they're not set at the start)
- When the target is complete, any values for the named properties are removed from the project (limits scope)
eg (using Bruce's example):
<target name="build" depends="init,checkout,compile" />
<target name="init" local-properties="DSTAMP,TSTAMP" >
<tstamp />
<echo message="Started Build - ${DSTAMP} ${TSTAMP}" />
</target><target name="checkout" depends="init,do-checkout" local-properties="DSTAMP,TSTAMP">
<tstamp />
<echo message="Finished Checkout - ${DSTAMP} ${TSTAMP}" />
</target>
<target name="compile" depends="init,do-compile" local-properties="DSTAMP,TSTAMP">
<tstamp />
<echo message="Finished Compile - ${DSTAMP} ${TSTAMP}" />
</target>
What do y'all think?
I'm willing to have a go at writing this if the idea meets with approval.
Cheers, Bevan.
-- "Programming is an Art Form that Fights Back"
Bevan Arps (<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]) Senior OO Analyst, ACT Financial Systems
This communication is confidential to ACT Financial Systems (Asia Pacific) and is intended for use only by the addressee. The views and opinions expressed in this email are the senders own and do not represent the views and opinions of ACT Financial Systems (Asia Pacific).
