2001-02-13 12:32:01 +00:00
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<head>
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<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
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<title>Ant User Manual</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h2><a name="property">Property</a></h2>
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<h3>Description</h3>
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<p>Sets a property (by name and value), or set of properties (from file or
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resource) in the project.</p>
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<p>When a property was set by the user, or was a property in a parent project
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(that started this project with the <a href="ant.html">ant task</a>), then this
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property cannot be set, and will be ignored. This means that properties set
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outside the current project always override the properties of the current
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project.</p>
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<p>There are five ways to set properties:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>By supplying both the <i>name</i> and <i>value</i> attribute.</li>
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<li>By supplying both the <i>name</i> and <i>refid</i> attribute.</li>
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<li>By setting the <i>file</i> attribute with the filename of the property
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file to load. This property file has the format as defined by the file used
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in the class java.util.Properties.</li>
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<li>By setting the <i>resource</i> attribute with the resource name of the
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property file to load. This property file has the format as defined by the
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file used in the class java.util.Properties.</li>
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<li>By setting the <i>environment</i> attribute with a prefix to use.
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Properties will be defined for every environment variable by
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prefixing the supplied name and a period to the name of the variable.</li>
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</ul>
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<p>Although combinations of the three ways are possible, only one should be used
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at a time. Problems might occur with the order in which properties are set, for
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instance.</p>
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<p>The value part of the properties being set, might contain references to other
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properties. These references are resolved at the time these properties are set.
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This also holds for properties loaded from a property file.</p>
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2001-08-30 13:23:14 +00:00
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<p>A list of predefined properties can be found <a
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href="../using.html#built-in-props">here</a>.</p>
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2001-02-13 12:32:01 +00:00
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<h3>Parameters</h3>
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<table border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">
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<tr>
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<td valign="top"><b>Attribute</b></td>
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<td valign="top"><b>Description</b></td>
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<td align="center" valign="top"><b>Required</b></td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td valign="top">name</td>
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<td valign="top">the name of the property to set.</td>
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<td valign="top" align="center">No</td>
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2001-02-13 12:32:01 +00:00
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td valign="top">value</td>
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<td valign="top">the value of the property.</td>
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<td valign="middle" align="center" rowspan="3">One of these, when using the
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name attribute</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td valign="top">location</td>
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<td valign="top">Sets the property to the absolute filename of the
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given file. If the value of this attribute is an absolute path, it
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is left unchanged (with / and \ characters converted to the
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current platforms conventions). Otherwise it is taken as a path
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relative to the project's basedir and expanded.</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td valign="top">refid</td>
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<td valign="top"><a href="../using.html#references">Reference</a> to an object
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defined elsewhere. Only yields reasonable results for references
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to <a href="../using.html#path">PATH like structures</a> or properties.</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td valign="top">resource</td>
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<td valign="top">the resource name of the property file.</td>
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<td valign="middle" align="center" rowspan="3">One of these, when
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<b>not</b> using the name attribute</td>
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2001-02-13 12:32:01 +00:00
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td valign="top">file</td>
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<td valign="top">the filename of the property file .</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td valign="top">environment</td>
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<td valign="top">the prefix to use when retrieving environment variables. Thus
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if you specify environment="myenv" you will be able to access OS-specific
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environment variables via property names "myenv.PATH" or
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"myenv.TERM". Note that if you supply a property name with a final
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"." it will not be doubled. ie environment="myenv." will still
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allow access of environment variables through "myenv.PATH" and
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"myenv.TERM". This functionality is currently only implemented
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on select platforms. Feel free to send patches to increase the number of platforms
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this functionality is supported on ;)</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td valign="top">classpath</td>
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<td valign="top">the classpath to use when looking up a resource.</td>
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<td align="center" valign="top">No</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td valign="top">classpathref</td>
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<td valign="top">the classpath to use when looking up a resource,
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given as <a href="../using.html#references">reference</a> to a PATH defined
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elsewhere..</td>
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<td align="center" valign="top">No</td>
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</tr>
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</table>
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<h3>Parameters specified as nested elements</h3>
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<h4>classpath</h4>
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<p><code>Property</code>'s <i>classpath</i> attribute is a <a
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href="../using.html#path">PATH like structure</a> and can also be set via a nested
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<i>classpath</i> element.</p>
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<h3>Examples</h3>
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<pre> <property name="foo.dist" value="dist"/></pre>
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<p>sets the property <code>foo.dist</code> to the value "dist".</p>
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<pre> <property file="foo.properties"/></pre>
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<p>reads a set of properties from a file called "foo.properties".</p>
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<pre> <property resource="foo.properties"/></pre>
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<p>reads a set of properties from a resource called "foo.properties".</p>
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<p>Note that you can reference a global properties file for all of your Ant
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builds using the following:</p>
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<pre> <property file="${user.home}/.ant-global.properties"/></pre>
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<p>since the "user.home" property is defined by the Java virtual machine
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to be your home directory. This technique is more appropriate for Unix than
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Windows since the notion of a home directory doesn't exist on Windows. On the
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JVM that I tested, the home directory on Windows is "C:\". Different JVM
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implementations may use other values for the home directory on Windows.</p>
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2001-07-18 13:05:19 +00:00
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<pre>
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<property environment="env"/>
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<echo message="Number of Processors = ${env.NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS}"/>
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<echo message="ANT_HOME is set to = ${env.ANT_HOME}"/>
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</pre>
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<p>reads the system environment variables and stores them in properties, prefixed with "env".
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Note that this only works on <em>select</em> operating systems.
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Two of the values are shown being echoed.
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</p>
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2001-02-13 12:32:01 +00:00
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<hr>
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<p align="center">Copyright © 2000,2001 Apache Software Foundation. All rights
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Reserved.</p>
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</body>
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</html>
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