Replacing all tokens based on properties file with ANT - ant

Question

I'm pretty sure this is a simple question to answer and ive seen it asked before just no solid answers.
I have several properties files that are used for different environments, i.e xxxx-dev, xxxx-test, xxxx-live
The properties files contain something like:
server.name=dummy_server_name
server.ip=127.0.0.1
The template files im using look something like:
<...>
<server name="#server.name#" ip="#server.ip#"/>
</...>
The above is a really primitive example, but im wondering if there is a way to just tell ANT to replace all tokens based on the properties file, rather than having to hardcode a token line for each... i.e
<replacetokens>
<token key="server.name" value="${server.name}"/>
<token key="server.ip" value="${server.ip}"/>
</replacetokens>
Any help would be great!

Answer 1

You can specify the properties file from which to read the list of tokens for the 'replace' task using replacefilterfile:
<replace file="input.txt" replacefilterfile="properties.txt"/>
Similarly, in a filter chain, you can use 'replacetokens' propertyfile:
This will treat each properties file
entry in sample.properties as a
token/key pair:
<loadfile srcfile="${src.file}" property="${src.file.replaced}">
<filterchain>
<filterreader classname="org.apache.tools.ant.filters.ReplaceTokens">
<param type="propertiesfile" value="sample.properties"/>
</filterreader>
</filterchain>
</loadfile>

Answer 2

With the replace task by itself I missed the # delimiters around tokens so I came up with the following solution. You can use any ant property in the template file
<project name="replace" default="replace">
<property file="build.properties" />
<target name="replace">
<!-- create temp file with properties -->
<tempfile property="temp.replace" suffix=".properties"/>
<echoproperties destfile="${temp.replace}" />
<!-- replace name=value with #name#=value -->
<replaceregexp file="${temp.replace}" match="([^=]*)=" replace="#\1#=" byline="true" />
<!-- copy template and replace properties -->
<copy file="template.txt" tofile="replaced.txt" />
<replace file="replaced.txt" replacefilterfile="${temp.replace}" />
</target>
with a template
ANT home #ant.home#
ANT version #ant.java.version#
server name #server.name# ip #server.ip#
this results in
ANT home /usr/share/ant
ANT version 1.7
server name dummy_server_name ip 127.0.0.1

Answer 3

Using fileset form ant-contrib you can read the tokens form properties file and replace multiple tokens over multiple files.
<project name="MyProject" default="replaceToklens" basedir=".">
<property name="profilesProperties" value="${basedir}/environment.properties" />
<property name="build.dir" location="build"/>
<!-- File to Load/ Accessable -->
<property file="${profilesProperties}" />
<target name="replaceToklens">
<taskdef resource="net/sf/antcontrib/antlib.xml">
<classpath>
<pathelement location="${basedir}/ant-contrib-1.0b3.jar" />
</classpath>
</taskdef>
<mkdir dir="${build.dir}"/>
<filter filtersfile="${profilesProperties}" />
<copy todir="${build.dir}" filtering="true" overwrite="true">
<fileset dir="${basedir}"> <!-- target/MyProject -->
<include name="*.xml" />
<exclude name="build.xml" />
</fileset>
</copy>
</target>
</project>
folder structure:
ANT
\_ build.xml
\_ environment.properties
\_ server.xml
\_ build
\_ server.xml [replaced with token value]
In order to replace single toke use the following:
<replace file="build/server.xml" token="#keyName#" value="${keyValue}" />