How in Ant output values of properties?

Question

In Ant exits task Echo:

<echo message="Hello, world"/> 

But it seems useless. I need to check values in ant file. E.g.

 <property file="${user.home}/build.properties"/>  <echo message="${file}" /> 

but I receive only:

 [echo] ${file} 

How I can have Ant display value of file?

Answer 1

This statement:

<property file="${user.home}/build.properties"/> 

Reads a property file(i.e. all properties in that file), and does not set the property named file.

This would be correct. You first set a property and then echo it:

<property name="file" value="${user.home}/build.properties"/> <echo message="${file}" /> 

Answer 2

You're getting ${file} echoed back at you because you're not setting that property. Is there a line in your property file that says file = someValue?

Maybe you want to do something like this?

<property name="property.file" value="${user.home}/build.properties"/> <property file="${property.file}"/> <echo message="My property file is called &quot;${property.file}&quot;"/>