Question

Is there a way in ant to load properties from inside a zip file?

I have a project ant file which needs to use some properties that are in a file that is inside a zip file. The zip file is stored in a known location on our CI server.

/known location/file.zip
   |
   +--- properties/details.properties

The following doesn’t work

<project name="test" basedir="." >
    <property file="/known location/file.zip/properties/details.properties"/>
    ....
</project>

Answer 1

Since zip files and jar files are basically the same, you can use the url form of the property task, with a jar url.

<property url="jar:file:/known location/file.zip!/properties/details.properties" />

Note the jar:file: at the front of the url, and the !/ separating the zip file location from the path of the properties file within the zip.

See the JarURLConnection docs for more info on the syntax of a jar: url.