ANT Condition Conditional if statement - Java

Do you have a question? Is it a quest or a competition? Do you think you are
able to demand solutions?

Or do you simply not understand the description in the manual
(http://ant.apache.org/manual/using.html#targets) ?

If the latter is the case RTFM! Understand that "if" and "unless" do not
check the value of the property only whether the property is set or not.

A hint for you - apart from reading documentation - is to use commandline
properties: "ant -Ddoit=doit"

/nobody important

"GIMME" <gimme_this_gimme_that@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3f12b4fb.0404231441.7f6e3678@posting.google.com...
> Your choice of :
>
> 1. Modify the project below so that if that when the property
> doit is assigned then the message "doit" is printed. OR
>
> 2. Modify the project below so that if the property of doit is
> true then the message "doit" is printed, and nothing happens
> otherwise.
>
> Thanks.
>
>
> <project name="inf" default="all" basedir="." >
>
> <property name="doit" value="true" />
>
> <target name="go" if="${doit}">
> <echo message="doit"/>
> </target>
>
> <target name="all">
> <antcall target="go"/>
> </target>
>
> </project>

I read the manual, and as I understood it, ANT was not behaving
like like the manual said it should.

I did experiment with it, as the manual describes, checking whether or
not *ANT properties* are set. It didn't work. I didn't even occur
to me to use command line properties instead.

The propose of writing the question the way I did was to make it
easy for someone to provide a useful response.

Also, it makes it so that anyone else having the same question
who searches on Google can find a working example.


> Do you have a question? Is it a quest or a competition? Do you think you are
> able to demand solutions?

Well, did you get it to work for you?


"GIMME" <gimme_this_gimme_that@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3f12b4fb.0404260844.676abdd7@posting.google.com...
> I read the manual, and as I understood it, ANT was not behaving
> like like the manual said it should.
>

No, ANT is just implemented that way - IMHO: really annoying. And you
cannot - in strict ANT - reset a property. And yes, IMHO, the manual is not
the quality of a bestseller, but neither are "man"-pages.

Your problem with ANT properties, whether they are set or not would possibly
be solved by considering the ANT property-holder as a modified
java.util.Properties (in which you cannot put already existing properties) -
an Ant property is set if it exist within the Properties - that is,
Properties.getProperty("propertyName") does not return null. You could use
Properties.containsKey("propertyName") for better understanding.

That is: ANT's " if='doit' " equals "Does the project in this Ant-file
contain a property key called 'doit' ?"
It's not: "Does the project in this Ant-file contain a property key called
'doit' and is the text value of that property 'true' " as there's no reason
to assume need of parsing any property for arbitrary values in specific
types: int, boolean, double.

The great fun is when you set a property to "false" and later, someone else
is trying to understand what the script is doing, misses the point, that a
property set to "false" (notice the "set to" here) means the property is
actually set, and any " if = 'property' " will be executed.

> I did experiment with it, as the manual describes, checking whether or
> not *ANT properties* are set. It didn't work. I didn't even occur
> to me to use command line properties instead.
>
> The propose of writing the question the way I did was to make it
> easy for someone to provide a useful response.
>
> Also, it makes it so that anyone else having the same question
> who searches on Google can find a working example.
>
>
> > Do you have a question? Is it a quest or a competition? Do you think you
are
> > able to demand solutions?

/nobody important

My ant build file looks like this:

<!-- build.xml -->
<project name="TestIf" default="TestIf">
<target name="Initialize">
<condition property="isAuto">
<isset property="buildLabel" />
</condition>
<echo>isAuto: ${isAuto}</echo>
</target>

<target name="TestIf" depends="Initialize" if="${isAuto}">
<echo>buildLabel: ${buildLabel}</echo>
</target>
</project>

I use ant from command line like this:
ant -f build.xml -DbuildLabel=2.6.4

For some reason, the echo statement inside target "TestIf" never gets executed. I even tried doing this (but in vain):

<target name="TestIf" depends="Initialize" if="${buildLabel}">
...
</target>

I have tried every possible link (including the Apache ant documentation) to look for a solution. Somehow, I am unable to find a solution. I am using ant version 1.7.1

Can you please let me know what am I doing wrong?

Thanks