How can I change property values in a file using Ant?

Question

Example input:

SERVER_NAME=server1
PROFILE_NAME=profile1
...

Example output:

SERVER_NAME=server3
PROFILE_NAME=profile3
...

This file will use in applicationContext.xml. I've tried

<copy file="${web.dir}/jexamples.css_tpl"
         tofile="${web.dir}/jexamples.css" >
    <filterchain>
       <replacetokens>
            <token key="SERVER_NAME" value="server2"/>
            <token key="PROFILE_NAME" value="profi"/>

        </replacetokens>
    </filterchain>
</copy>

but it doesn't work.

Answer 1

Your filterchain is ok, but your source file should look like this:

SERVER_NAME=@SERVER_NAME@
PROFILE_NAME=@PROFILE_NAME@

This code (as provided by you)

<copy file="${web.dir}/jexamples.css_tpl"
         tofile="${web.dir}/jexamples.css" >
    <filterchain>
       <replacetokens>
            <token key="SERVER_NAME" value="server2"/>
            <token key="PROFILE_NAME" value="profi"/>
        </replacetokens>
    </filterchain>
</copy>

replaces the tokens and gives you

SERVER_NAME=server2
PROFILE_NAME=profi

---

If you want to keep your original file as you have it now, one way would be to use replaceregex:

<filterchain>
  <tokenfilter>
    <replaceregex pattern="^[ \t]*SERVER_NAME[ \t]*=.*$"
                  replace="SERVER_NAME=server2"/>
    <replaceregex pattern="^[ \t]*PROFILE_NAME[ \t]*=.*$"
                  replace="PROFILE_NAME=profi"/>
  </tokenfilter>
</filterchain>

This would replace every line starting with SERVER_NAME= by SERVER_NAME=server2 (same for PROFILE_NAME=). This will return get you the output you described.

[ \t]* is to ignore whitespace.

Answer 2

Cleaner solution is using "propertyfile" ant task - see http://ant.apache.org/manual/Tasks/propertyfile.html

<copy file="${web.dir}/jexamples.css_tpl"
     tofile="${web.dir}/jexamples.css" />
<propertyfile file="${web.dir}/jexamples.css">
    <entry key="SERVER_NAME" value="server2"/>
</propertyfile>