>we have a PropertyEvaluator for ${toString:some-id} that looks up an
>object with id "some-id" in the current project and expands to either
>null (reference doesn't exist) or the result of calling toString() on
>the object.
>
>With trunk PropertyEvaluators can return non-Strings as values for
>properties and IntrospectionHelper actually uses this. Say I have
>
>public void setFoo(MyComplexType t)
>
>as attribute and
>
><someTask foo="${property}"/>
>
>and a PropertyEvaluator returns an instance of MyComplexType for
>"property" then IntrospectionHelper will happily pass that instance
>along (if the attribute setter didn't match the whole old
>set-from-string logic would be applied to the toString() version of my
>property).
>
>This is most useful for tasks that want to accept Resource as an
>attribute, all it takes is a property evaluator that returns a Resource
>instance. For example
><http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/ant/core/trunk/src/tests/antunit/
>propertyhelpers.xml?view=log>
>and
><http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/ant/core/trunk/src/tests/antunit/
>taskdefs/replace-test.xml?view=log>.
>
>I suggest to add another core PropertyEvaluator that works like the one
>for toString but doesn't invoke toString() on the reference (but leaves
>that to IntrospectionHelper if necessary).
>
>As usual, I'm unsure about the name of the prefix
>
>${fromRefId:foo}
>${ref:foo}
>${refid:foo}
>${fromReference:foo}
>
>...
>
>The ${ref:} and ${refid:} ideas look prettier but are more likely to
>collide with existing property names.
Because you referencing an id I would prefer ${refid:*}.
There can be collisions as this is possible
<project>
<property name="x:foo" value="bar"/>
<echoproperties prefix="x"/>
</project>
[echoproperties] x\:foo=bar
but I think the ':' as seperation character is not a common use case.
But in conclusion that would be a note in the "could break existing
builds" section.
Jan
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