Ant XML Customized Folder Name

Question

I am new to Ant and XML and i need some help in a problem.

I want to create a root folder whose name would be something like

[number][timestamp][some_strings]_etc

I will show you my first piece of code, where i just read the values from the file.

<target name="create">

   <loadfile srcfile="new.txt" property="fisier" />
   <for param="line" list="${fisier}" delimiter="${line.separator}">
         <sequential>
            <echo>@{line}</echo>
            <propertyregex property="item"
              input="${line}"
              regexp="regexpToMatchSubstring"
              select="\1"
              casesensitive="false" />
         </sequential>
       </for>
   </target>

From the values i read, i need to subtract a string with a regexp. I have something like id=2344 and i need only the number, meaning the string from the right of the equal sign. How can i do that?

Answer 1

This kind of requirement is a lot simpler to implement using a general programming language. Your example demonstrates how the ant-contrib library is required to provide the "for" ANT task.

Here's an alternative implementation using groovy:

<groovy>
new File("data.txt").eachLine { line ->
  def num = line =~ /.*=(\d+)/
  println num[0][1]
}
</groovy>

Example

├── build.xml
└── data.txt

Run as follows

build:
   [groovy] 2222
   [groovy] 2223
   [groovy] 2224

data.txt

id=2222
id=2223
id=2224

build.xml

<project name="demo" default="build">

  <available classname="org.codehaus.groovy.ant.Groovy" property="groovy.installed"/>

  <target name="install-groovy" unless="groovy.installed">
    <mkdir dir="${user.home}/.ant/lib"/>
    <get dest="${user.home}/.ant/lib/groovy.jar" src="http://search.maven.org/remotecontent?filepath=org/codehaus/groovy/groovy-all/2.3.6/groovy-all-2.3.6.jar"/>
    <fail message="Groovy installed run the build again"/>
  </target>

  <target name="build" depends="install-groovy">
    <taskdef name="groovy" classname="org.codehaus.groovy.ant.Groovy"/>
    <groovy>
    new File("data.txt").eachLine { line ->
      def num = line =~ /.*=(\d+)/
      println num[0][1]
    }
    </groovy>
  </target>

</project>

Notes:

• Included an additional target that installs the jar required by the groovy task. Makes the build more portable.