Ant: How do I set a properties from a comma-separated list passed in on command line?

Question

I'm using Ant 1.8.1. If I passed in an argument on the command line ...

-DenableProperties=abc,def,ghi,jkl

How do I set individual properties (to true/false) in my Ant script?

<property name="abc" value="???" />
<property name="def" value="???" />

Note that in the above example, I'd want Ant to have access to a property "${abc}" that is set to true, whereas if it tried to access the property "${mno}" that property would be false, or at least some value other than true.

Thanks, - Dave

Answer 1

How to decide when an item of your property $enableproperties is to be set to false or true ?
Some criteria missin..
From my understanding of your question you might try something like that, my solution is based on Ant plugin Flaka

starting with ant -f demo.xml -Denableproperties=abc#t,def#t,ghi,jkl#t,mno
means all items in the list that should be set to true in your script have to be propertyname#t
others will be set to false

<project name="demo" xmlns:fl="antlib:it.haefelinger.flaka">

    <fl:for var="p" in="split('${enableproperties}', ',')">
      <fl:let>#{split(p, '#')[0]} := #{split(p, '#')[1] == 't' ? 'true' : 'false'}</fl:let>
    </fl:for>

    <echo>
$${abc} = ${abc}
$${def} = ${def}
$${ghi} = ${ghi}
$${jkl} = ${jkl}
$${mno} = ${mno}
    </echo>

</project>

output

 [echo] ${abc} = true
 [echo] ${def} = true
 [echo] ${ghi} = false
 [echo] ${jkl} = true
 [echo] ${mno} = false

Disclosure = i'm participating as committer in the Flaka project

Answer 2

Can't think of a way to do this in core Ant. You could do it with the For task of ant-contrib.

<project default="test">

  <taskdef resource="net/sf/antcontrib/antlib.xml">
    <classpath>
      <pathelement location="C:/lib/ant-contrib/ant-contrib-1.0b3.jar"/>
    </classpath>
  </taskdef>

  <target name="test">
    <for list="${enableProperties}" param="prop">
      <sequential>
         <property name="@{prop}" value="true"/>
      </sequential>
    </for>
    <for list="${enableProperties}" param="prop">
      <sequential>
         <echo message="@{prop}=${@{prop}}"/>
      </sequential>
    </for>
  </target>

</project>

Output:

$ ant -DenableProperties=abc,def,ghi,jkl
Buildfile: build.xml

test:
     [echo] abc=true
     [echo] def=true
     [echo] ghi=true
     [echo] jkl=true

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 0 seconds