Question

I have the following defined in a file called build-dependencies.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project name="build-dependencies">
  ...
  <path id="common-jars">
    <fileset file="artifacts/project-1/jar/some*.jar" />
    <fileset file="artifacts/project-2/jar/someother*.jar" />
  </path>
  ...
</project>

I include it at the top of my build.xml file. Now I need to make the artifacts folder a parameter so it can be changed during execution of different targets.
Having this…

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project name="build-dependencies">
  ...
  <path id="common-jars">
    <fileset file="${artifacts}/project-1/jar/some*.jar" />
    <fileset file="${artifacts}/project-2/jar/someother*.jar" />
  </path>
  ...
</project>

…and defining an “artifacts” property (and changing it) in the target does not work because it seems that the property substitution happens when the path is defined in build-dependencies.xml

How can I solve this? One way I was thinking was to have a parameterized macro and call that before the path is actually used, but that seems not elegant. Something like this:

<macrodef name="create-common-jars">
  <attribute name="artifacts"/>
  <sequential>
    <path id="common-jars">
      <fileset file="@{artifacts}/project-1/jar/some*.jar" />
      <fileset file="@{artifacts}/project-2/jar/someother*.jar" />
    </path>
  </sequential>
</macrodef>

EDIT: Ivy and command line parameters are not an option.

Answer 1

You don’t want a parameterized path. You want a PatternSet. You can define the patternset at the top-level and then just refer to it in individual targets when you need it. For your example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project name="build-dependencies">
  ...
  <patternset id="common-jars">
    <include name="project-1/jar/some*.jar" />
    <include name="project-2/jar/someother*.jar" />
  </patternset>
  ...
  <path id="instrumented-jars">
    <fileset dir="instrumented">
      <patternset refid="common-jars" />
    </fileset>
  </path>
  ...
  <path id="standard-jars">
    <fileset dir="not-instrumented">
      <patternset refid="common-jars" />
    </fileset>
  </path>
  ...
</project>