Force Ant to substitue a substitution variable - ant

Question

I use a software (Drops) based on ant script.
I try to dynamically generate the destination path of a file that I want to copy. To do this I execute a linux command line.
In my application, I have this properties :
environment.props.environment_name=recette
application.props.target.gmao=/opt/${environment.props.environment_name}/gmao-ws
I expected Ant to replace ${environment.props.environment_name} by its value at runtime. But it doesn't.
Here is the Ant script that I wrote :
<project xmlns:drops="antlib:com.arcadsoftware.mmk.anttasks" name="deployJar" basedir="." default="main">
<taskdef resource="net/sf/antcontrib/antlib.xml"/>
<taskdef resource="com/dropssoftware/drops/ant/antlib.xml"/>
<loadDropsContext/>
<target name="main">
<!-- get the value of the property "application.props.target.gmao" -->
<propertycopy name="target.dir" from="application.props.target.gmao"/>
<!-- I expect this to print target.dir=/opt/recette/gmao-ws but it print target.dir=/opt/${environment.props.environment_name}/gmao-ws -->
<echoproperties />
<!-- Supposed to copy from /opt/drops/storage/afile.jar to /opt/recette/gmao-ws but the property "target.dir" is wrong -->
<exec executable="sudo">
<arg value="/bin/cp"/>
<arg value="${param.artifacts.root}/${param.jar.root}"/>
<arg value="${target.dir}"/>
</exec>
</target>
</project>
With this input :
param.env=gmao
param.artifacts.root=/opt/drops/storage/
It is supposed to copy a file from the artifacts directory to the /opt/recette/gmao-ws directory. But Ant tried to copy it to /opt/${environment.props.environment_name}/gmao-ws.
I don't understand why Ant doesn't replace ${environment.props.environment_name} by its value.
Is it possible to force Ant to replace the substitution variable by its value ?

Answer 1

Not entirely clear what you're trying to do. The propertycopy task is not part of normal Ant, coming from a 3rd party extension called ant-contrib
I suspect what you're trying to do can be done with normal property substitution. I have provided an example.
Example
A simple example of how to pass in parameters to a build file by setting properties:
$ ant -Dparam.from=AAA -Dparam.to=BBB
build:
[echo]
[echo] sudo
[echo] /bin/cp
[echo] /opt/drops/storage/AAA
[echo] /opt/drops/storage/BBB
[echo]
build.xml
Note the 3 properties declared at the top? These are effectively the default values available for override.
<project name="demo" default="build">
<property name="param.artifacts.root" value="/opt/drops/storage"/>
<property name="param.from" value="fromDir"/>
<property name="param.to" value="toDir"/>
<target name="build">
<echo>
sudo
/bin/cp
${param.artifacts.root}/${param.from}
${param.artifacts.root}/${param.to}
</echo>
</target>
</project>

Answer 2

I think that I find the answer to my question in ant document :
https://ant.apache.org/manual/properties.html
Normally property values can not be changed, once a property is set, most tasks will not allow its value to be modified.
In the case of the software that I use : Drops, it loaded the application properties BEFORE the environment properties.
So application.props.target.gmao is set BEFORE environment.props.environment_name and the ${environment.props.environment_name} cannot be replace.
The answer to my question is seems to be NO, it's not possible to force Ant to replace the substitution variable by its value.
It's done automatically if the variables are loaded in the good order.