Ant: The Definitive Guide

Common Types and Attributes

All Ant tasks are written using XML — for instance:

<copy file="logo.gif" todir="${builddir}"/>

In this example, file and todir are attributes. The attribute values, "logo.gif" and "${builddir}", have specific data types. This section summarizes the allowable data types for task attributes, followed by a list of attributes common to all tasks.

XML Attribute Conventions

There are many XML attribute listings in this chapter. They take the following form:

attribute_name (version, type, required_flag)

Is a description of the attribute and its function.

In which:

attribute_name

Is the name of the attribute. Use this to refer to the attribute when you specify it for a task.

version

Indicates the version of Ant supporting this attribute. all means Ant Versions 1.2 and later.

type

Indicates the type of data that an attribute can hold. For example, String indicates that an attribute holds textual data. See Table 7-2.

required_flag

Indicates whether a given attribute is required when using the task. If this flag is an asterisk (*), then see the notes immediately following the list.

Description of attribute

Is a description of the attribute and its function.

Table 7-2 summarizes the attribute types frequently referenced throughout this chapter. In all cases, text from XML attributes is converted into one of the basic types listed here. The “Description” column describes how each conversion happens. The “Implemented by” column lists the Java class that Ant uses to represent each ...