Symbolic Properties Tutorial

Using Symbolic References

Ant users will be familiar to the ${name} convention when referencing property values. This tutorial demonstrates the equivalent functionality within the Depot project defintion.

index.xml

The index file has been updated to reference an existing property and a system property in the defintion of our message property. In this case we are referencing the system property user.name and the property location in the defintion of message.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<index xmlns="dpml:library">

  <project name="demo" basedir=".">
    <properties>
      <property name="location" value="New York"/>
      <property name="message" value="Hello for ${user.name} in ${location}"/>
    </properties>
  </project>

</index>

Building the project ..

$ cd tutorials\tooling\symbolic
$ build

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
demo#SNAPSHOT
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

build:
     [echo] Hello from mcconnell in New York

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 0 seconds

$

Summary

Symbolic references to property names may include any property defined within the project or any enclosing scope (module or index) and any system property declared by tyhe JVM.

The following totorial demonstrates the addition of token-based filters to our project defintion.