MacroDef, properties and xmltask

Question

 <target name="openAssetXMLFile">
   <for list="${LogOfCurrentAssetChanges}" delimiter="${line.separator}" param="paths">
     <sequential>
       <xmltask source="${basedir}@{paths}">
         <copy path="/x/id/text()" attrValue="true" property="type"/>
         <copy path="/x/attribute[9]/data/stringValue/text()" attrValue="true" property="uid"/> 
       </xmltask>
       <echo> ${type}</echo>
       <echo> ${basedir}@{paths}</echo>
       <echo> ${uid}</echo>
     </sequential>
   </for>       
 </target>

I am fairly helpless here and would like any assistance. So I have the above buildfile snippet which uses sequential, which uses macrodefinitions so a string should be referred with the @ sign as opposed to the usual $ sign.

I have a logofcurrentassetchanges file which contains a relative reference to some xml files. Now I need to concatenate this with the current directory to produce the absolute reference name. When I echo the concatenated string its perfect - by which I mean for each for loop iteration it prints a different xml string as expected. However when I use it in an xmltask as shown above, it uses the very first source for all iterations? Do I need to refresh/cleanup or do something to flush the xmltask source attribute off its original old values? Or is there anything I can do to fix this problem. A sample output from the echo statements:

 [echo]  CSElement:1242615155986
 [echo]  /y/z/t/u/11/67/MFootsfgsgfser(e7e105ef-660f-4363-8018-638f87ba06be).main.xml
 [echo]  7d454a57-fe1a-48c1-994c-bbcbbf9f78e4
 [echo]  CSElement:1242615155986
 [echo]  /a/b/c/MORegistsfgsfgfsgerLogsfgshinLinsgsfgks.jsp.main.xml
 [echo]  7d454a57-fe1a-48c1-994c-bbcbbf9f78e4

here the type and uid keep repeating, but the path looks right when printed.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 07 '13 at 21:54

(At least part of) the problem is that the xmltask copies assign to Ant properties (named type and uid). Ant properties - unlike the ant-contrib @ variables are normally immutable, so once you set a value for them, they don't change. This is what you're seeing.

There is a task - as of Ant version 1.8 - called local which can be used to scope a property to the current 'block', so that you can have a different value in each for iteration. It would look like this:

<sequential>
   <local name="type" />
   <local name="uid" />
   <xmltask source="${basedir}@{paths}">
   ... etc.

MacroDef, properties and xmltask

1 Answers1