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Description

Sets a property (by name and value), or set of properties (from file or resource) in the project. Properties are case sensitive.

Properties are immutable: whoever sets a property first freezes it for the rest of the build; they are most definately not variable.

There are five ways to set properties:

  1. By supplying both the name and value attribute.
  2. By supplying both the name and refid attribute.
  3. By setting the file attribute with the filename of the property file to load. This property file has the format as defined by the file used in the class java.util.Properties.
  4. By setting the resource attribute with the resource name of the property file to load. This property file has the format as defined by the file used in the class java.util.Properties.
  5. By setting the environment attribute with a prefix to use. Properties will be defined for every environment variable by prefixing the supplied name and a period to the name of the variable.

Although combinations of these ways are possible, only one should be used at a time. Problems might occur with the order in which properties are set, for instance.

The value part of the properties being set, might contain references to other properties. These references are resolved at the time these properties are set. This also holds for properties loaded from a property file.

A list of predefined properties can be found here.


next up previous contents index
Next: Parameters Up: Property Previous: Property   Contents   Index
Andrew Marlow 2003-07-08