ANT - retrieving the current task name

Question

How can an ANT task like this one:

<target name="mytask">
  <echo>processing ${blabla}</echo>
</target>

print processing mytask ?

What should I replace blabla with ? Or this is actually even possible ?

What's your use case? Do you just need to print when a task starts/finishes, because Ant can do that already. — skaffman, Mar 28 '12 at 12:16
No, that was just an example. I want to create a file with the target name. — Display Name, Mar 28 '12 at 12:23
Is the file-creator in Ant or external (reading the output)? — ewan.chalmers, Mar 28 '12 at 12:51
Seems a strange requirement. You want to know the name of the current target so you can use that value, in the same target, to do something (create a file). You are writing the target. It has a name. Type the name again within the body of the target. Why do you need to dynamically discover the name at runtime? — ewan.chalmers, Mar 29 '12 at 09:43
@sudocode - does this appear strange to you ? I would avoid writing the same code over and over and introduce a pattern for file creation based on task name. What's strange ? — Display Name, Apr 02 '12 at 08:29
I'm all for code reuse/abstraction in general, but for this case I was wondering how it could be worthwhile. If I compare this: `` with this `` it's hard to see why the first is better. But I shouldn't make assumptions about your requirements. If it works for you, go for it. — ewan.chalmers, Apr 02 '12 at 08:33

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 28 '12 at 22:42

This might work for you with vanilla Ant, if your version is recent enough to include javascript support.

<scriptdef name="currenttarget" language="javascript">
    <attribute name="property"/>
    <![CDATA[
    importClass( java.lang.Thread );

    project.setProperty(
        attributes.get( "property" ),
        project.getThreadTask(
            Thread.currentThread( ) ).getTask( ).getOwningTarget( ).getName( ) );
    ]]>
</scriptdef>

<target name="foobar">
    <currenttarget property="my_target" />
    <echo message="${my_target}" />
</target>

The scriptdef sets up a task currenttarget that can be used to get the current target in a property, which you can then use as you see fit.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 28 '12 at 12:36

0

The task name is always output to console by Ant:

Here is an example:

<project default="test">

    <target name="test" depends="mytask-silent, mytask-echo"/>

    <target name="mytask-echo">
        <echo>processing</echo>
    </target>

    <target name="mytask-silent"/>

</project>

Here is the output:

C:\tmp\ant>ant
Buildfile: c:\tmp\ant\build.xml

mytask-silent:

mytask-echo:
     [echo] processing

test:

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 0 seconds

answered Mar 28 '12 at 12:36

ewan.chalmers

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This answers your original question, but not your actual requirement as updated in comments. – ewan.chalmers Mar 28 '12 at 12:46
Indeed. Thanks, but your answer does not help. – Display Name Mar 28 '12 at 12:56

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 28 '12 at 20:25

The only way I know it do this is to write an ANT task or use a groovy script as follows:

<target name="mytask" depends="init">
    <taskdef name="groovy" classname="org.codehaus.groovy.ant.Groovy" classpathref="build.path"/>

    <groovy>
        println "processing ${target}"
    </groovy>
</target>

ANT - retrieving the current task name

3 Answers3