Question

I have an XML file where I keep relevant default values for my application, such as the server URL. I use Maven to build my application. My goal is to edit the XML and change the server URL depending on the environment I will be using, such as development, test and production environment.

The XML file is of type plist and cannot be changed.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>ServerURL</key>
    <string>https://server_url</string>

    <!-- Other properties goes here -->

</dict>
</plist>

Does anyone know how to solve this?

I have found the xmltask but no working example on how to something like this. I want something that is really simple to perform a simple task like this. Is there maybe a simple Maven plugin that fixes this? I know XPath and it would be nice to use a simple XPath expression to change the XML file.

Answer 1

I’d suggest to use profiles and filtering of resources with maven-resources-plugin for this task.

For example, in your XML config file you can specify server URL like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>ServerURL</key>
    <string>${server.url}</string>

    <!-- Other properties goes here -->

</dict>
</plist>

Meanwhile, in your pom.xml file you should define server.url property

<properties>
  <server.url>http://default_url</server.url>
</properties>

and one (or several) profiles that will modify its value

<profiles>
  <profile>
    <id>custom</id>
    <properties>
      <server.url>http://custom_url</server.url>
    </properties>
  </profile>
</profiles>