Escape quote character in ant file

Question

I'm trying to retrieve a String defined in the class Core.java as follows:

public static final String PLATFORM_VERSION = "3.0.1_170518";

So I have created a test ant file (because I want to store it as an ant property to be used in compilation process).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project basedir="." default="get-core-version" name="test">

<target name="get-core-version">
    <exec executable="bash"
        outputproperty="coreVersionTemp"
        failonerror="true">
        <arg value="-c"/>
        <arg value="cat ./Core.java | grep VERSION"/>
    </exec>
    <echo message="&quot;ResultadoIntermedio&quot;: ${coreVersionTemp}"/>
    <exec executable="bash"
        outputproperty="coreVersion"
        failonerror="true">
        <arg value="-c"/>
        <arg value="echo ${coreVersionTemp} | cut -d'\&quot;' -f2"/>
    </exec>
    <echo message="Resultado: ${coreVersion}"/>
</target>      

The ant code is split to locate exactly where is failing. The ant returns:

Buildfile: E:\git\test.xml

get-core-version:
     [echo] "ResultadoIntermedio":     public static final String PLATFORM_VERSION = "3.0.1_170518";

BUILD FAILED
E:\git\test.xml:14: exec returned: 1

Total time: 0 seconds

As you can see, the error is on 'cut' command. ResultadoIntermedio is correct. If we execute the full command on bash, we have the expected result as well:

$ cat ./Core.java | grep VERSION | cut -d '"' -f2
3.0.1_170518

The problem is, I think, in the escape characters after the -d option of cut. I have tried:

'"'
'\"'
\'\"\'
'"'
\'"\'
'"'

And some other combinations... how can I do this correctly?

Thank you very much.

Answer 1

Taking a workaround replacing '"' to ':' in the property with Javascript works fine, but is a little nasty solution.

    <target name="get-core-version">
    <exec executable="bash"
        outputproperty="coreVersionTemp"
        failonerror="true">
        <arg value="-c"/>
        <arg value="cat ./Core.java | grep VERSION"/>
    </exec>
    <echo message="&quot;ResultadoIntermedio&quot;: ${coreVersionTemp}"/>
    <!-- <propertyregex property="coreVersionTemp2" input="coreVersionTemp" regexp="&quot;" replace=":" global="true"/> -->
    <script language="javascript">
        var temp = project.getProperty("coreVersionTemp");
        project.setProperty("coreVersionTemp", temp.replaceAll("\"", ":"));
    </script>
    <echo message="&quot;ResultadoIntermedio2&quot;: ${coreVersionTemp}"/>
    <exec executable="bash"
        outputproperty="coreVersion"
        failonerror="true">
        <arg value="-c"/>
        <arg value="echo '${coreVersionTemp}' | cut -d: -f2"/>
    </exec>
    <echo message="Resultado: ${coreVersion}"/>
</target>      
</project>