ReplaceRegExp is a directory based task for replacing the occurrence of a given regular expression with a substitution pattern in a selected file or set of files.
Similar to regexp
type mappers this task needs a supporting regular expression
library and an implementation of
org.apache.tools.ant.util.regexp.Regexp. Ant comes with
implementations for
the java.util.regex package of JDK 1.4,
jakarta-regexp
and jakarta-ORO,
but you will still need the library itself.
| Attribute | Description | Required |
| file | file for which the regular expression should be replaced. | Yes if no nested <fileset> is used |
| match | The regular expression pattern to match in the file(s) | Yes, if no nested <regularexpression> is used |
| replace | The substition pattern to place in the file(s) in place of the regular expression. | Yes, if no nested <substitution> is used |
| flags | The flags to use when matching the regular expression. For more
information, consult the Perl5 syntax g --> Global replacement. Replace all occurances found i --> Case Insensitive. Do not consider case in the match m --> Multiline. Treat the string as multiple lines of input, using "^" and "$" as the start or end of any line, respectively, rather than start or end of string. s --> Singleline. Treat the string as a single line of input, using "." to match any character, including a newline, which normally, it would not match. | No |
| byline | Process the file(s) one line at a time, executing the replacement on one line at a time (true/false). This is useful if you want to only replace the first occurance of a regular expression on each line, which is not easy to do when processing the file as a whole. Defaults to false. | No |
<replaceregexp file="${src}/build.properties"
match="OldProperty=(.*)"
replace="NewProperty=\1"
byline="true" />
replaces occurrences of the property name "OldProperty"
with "NewProperty" in a properties file, preserving the existing
value, in the file ${src}/build.properties
This task supports a nested FileSet element.
This task supports a nested RegularExpression element to specify the regular expression. You can use this element to refer to a previously defined regular expression datatype instance.
<regularexpression id="id" pattern="expression" />
<regularexpression refid="id" />
This task supports a nested Substitution element to specify the substitution pattern. You can use this element to refer to a previously defined substition pattern datatype instance.
<substitution id="id" pattern="expression" />
<substitution refid="id" />
<replaceregexp byline="true"> <regularexpression expression="OldProperty=(.*)" /> <substitution expression="NewProperty=\1" /> <fileset dir="."> <includes="*.properties" /> </fileset> </replaceregexp>
replaces occurrences of the property name "OldProperty"
with "NewProperty" in a properties file, preserving the existing
value, in all files ending in .properties in the current directory
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