I would like to suggest two extensions to ant's use of .properties files
(maybe ant can already do these things, but between reading the doc
and experimenting I didn't see how):
1) Add a '-properties <filename>' to specify a properties file
which in effect "globally" for a single ant run. Obviously
it's possible to obtain something close to this functionality
by inserting the <properties file=.../> tag at the top of my
build file, but if I have my build.xml files set up in a
cascading manner (as I do) and want the flexibility to build
against any build file in any directory, I have to include the
<properties> tag in every single build file. And I believe that
ant will reload that same properties file with each build.xml
it parses, which seems like kind of a waste.
2) Support cascading .properties files. That is, define some
distinguished string (like 'INCLUDE_PROPERTIES=<filename>'
or something) to indicate that once you're done loading the
current properties file, then go out and load the specified one
as
well.
I think my reasons for requesting (1) are pretty clear. My reason for
requesting (2)
is simply that my project has some properties which need to be constant
across
a given development environment (so all builds would reference a single,
environment-specific .properties file), and other properties which may
change from
one build to the next, and need to be configurable by the end user (and
thus
driven off a file in ${user.home}). If suggestions (1) and (2) are both
implemented,
then it would be quite easy to slurp up both sets of propeties exactly once
for a
single build, no matter where in my source tree I'm building. All it would
require
(once the .properties files are defined) is a slight modification to the
ant wrapper.
Furthermore, the properties defined in the "parent" .properties file could
act as
defaults for properties defined in the "child" .properties file, in case a
certain user
doesn't want to/doesn't know about the user-specific .properties file in
their home
directory.
Just a suggestion.
--dave
--
To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
