Gerry- That's precisely the point, I "Do" want users to override (or trash) default property values whenever they need to, In our specific case Nant needs to prepare/configure the testing environment for Web services/Website unit-testing and since each user might have different website names, port numbers and database server settings, I don't want them messing around with the core functionality of the build files, in case of build execution problems maintenance-wise, it would be easier to remove these properties from the external file as opposed to going over multiple file to figure who/what broke the build process.
Let me give you an additional use-case scenario: 1.- Dev. Team A working on a hot-fix for a recently released product (build 5), while team B is currently working with the latest source code (build 25) that includes some structural changes which btw is totally broken. QA has recently completed their testing on Build 16 and would like to certify it as beta as long as some small fixes that were made in build 18 are included in the released product. By giving Dev. teams the freedom to determine this kind of build behavior at runtime then there's no need to maintain multiple build files. BTW. You're right, XmlElement is a bit clearer. Thanks, Jorge -----Original Message----- From: Shaw, Gerry [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, September 06, 2002 12:19 PM To: 'Jorge Bermejo'; '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: [nant-dev] Modified LoopTask... This is an interesting patch but with its current implementation I think it's a bit dangerous. The potential for trashing pre-set properties is quite high. The intention of the property attribute on the loop task was so that you as the build author know what property is going to change. With this change you have no idea what properties are going to be changed. Why not take it a tiny bit further and change the 'in' behavior to take an xml file AND xpath query and use the user supplied property as a prefix. This way the only properties that change are prefixed with a user supplied prefix. I also think XmlElement vs Node is a bit clearer. Ie, <foreach item="XmlElement" in="manifest.xml:manfest/component" property="component"> <echo message="element=${component} name-attribute=${component.name} path-attribute=${component.path}"/> </foreach> There is probably a better syntax for specifying the filename and xpath statement (is there a standard for this?) I really like the idea/potential I just think it needs a bit more work for general consumption. ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by: OSDN - Tired of that same old cell phone? Get a new here for FREE! https://www.inphonic.com/r.asp?r=sourceforge1&refcode1=vs3390 _______________________________________________ Nant-developers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
