Ant Properties File

You can also group all the property values in a separate properties file and include it in the ant build file. Here the build.properties file contains all the property values. Remember the property value is immutable, so if you set a property value in the properties file you cannot change it in the build file. This give more control over the build process.

The build.properties file.

1.web.dir=WebContent

2.web.lib.dir=${web.dir}/WEB-INF/lib

3.build.classes.dir=build/classes

4.dist.dir=dist

5.project.name=AntExample3

 Use the property task to include the properties file in the Ant build file.

1.<property file="build.properties" />

Here is the complete build file for your reference. 

01.<?xml version="1.0" ?>

02.<project name="AntExample3" default="war">

03. 

04.<property file="build.properties" />

05. 

06.<path id="compile.classpath">

07.<fileset dir="${web.lib.dir}">

08.<include name="*.jar"/>

09.</fileset>

10.</path>

11. 

12.<target name="init" depends="clean">

13.<mkdir dir="${build.classes.dir}"/>

14.<mkdir dir="${dist.dir}" />

15.</target>

16. 

17.<target name="compile" depends="init" >

18.<javac destdir="${build.classes.dir}" debug="true" srcdir="src">

19.<classpath refid="compile.classpath"/>

20.</javac>

21.</target>

22. 

23.<target name="war" depends="compile">

24.<war destfile="${dist.dir}/${project.name}.war"webxml="${web.dir}/WEB-INF/web.xml">

25.<fileset dir="${web.dir}"/>

26.<lib dir="${web.lib.dir}"/>

27.<classes dir="${build.classes.dir}"/>

28.</war>

29.</target>

30. 

31.<target name="clean">

32.<delete dir="${dist.dir}" />

33.<delete dir="${build.classes.dir}" />

34.</target>

35. 

36.</project>