Ant User Manual

Filterset

FilterSets are groups of filters. Filters can be defined as token value pairs or be read in from a file. FilterSets can appear inside tasks that support this feature or at the same level as target - i.e., as children of project.

In addition, Filtersets can have begintoken and/or endtoken attributes to define what to match.
Filtersets are used for doing replacements in tasks like copy etc.

Filterset

Attribute	Description	Default	Required
begintoken	The string marking the beginning of a token. eg @Date@	@	No
endtoken	The string marking the end of a token. eg @Date@	@	No

Filter

Attribute	Description	Required
token	The token to replace eg @Date@	Yes
value	The value to replace it with eg Thursday, April 26, 2001	Yes

Filtersfile

Attribute	Description	Required
file	The file to load tokens from should be a properties file of name value pairs.	Yes

Examples

You are copying the version.txt file to the dist directory from the build directory but wish to replace the token @DATE@ with todays date.

<copy file="${build.home}/version.txt" toFile="${dist.home}/version.txt">
  <filterset>
    <filter token="DATE" value="${DATE}"/>
  </filterset>
</copy>

You are copying the version.txt file to the dist directory from the build directory but wish to replace the token %DATE* with todays date.

<copy file="${build.home}/version.txt" toFile="${dist.home}/version.txt">
  <filterset begintoken="%" endtoken="*">
    <filter token="DATE" value="${DATE}"/>
  </filterset>
</copy>

Copy all the docs but change all dates and appropriate notices as stored in a file.

<copy toDir="${dist.home}/docs" >
  <fileset dir="${build.home}/docs">
    <include name="**/*.html">
  </fileset>
  <filterset begintoken="%" endtoken="*">
    <filter token="DATE" value="${DATE}"/>
    <filtersfile file="${user.home}/dist.properties"/>
  </filterset>
</copy>