Question

Is there a way to mask the password when using the <input .../> task in ANT from the Eclipse IDE?

I see a way to do it from the command line:

<input message="secure-input:" addproperty="the.password">
    <handler classname="org.apache.tools.ant.input.SecureInputHandler" />
</input>

But this doesn’t work in eclipse.

Answer 1

EDIT : As ant secure Input handler still doesn’t work in eclipse 4.x, here’s a solution based on ant script task, working with builtin javascript engine (since JDK 1.6.0_06), so no extra libraries needed :

<project>
<script language="javascript">
 // imports
 importClass(javax.swing.JPasswordField);
 importClass(javax.swing.JOptionPane);

 var pw = new JPasswordField();
 var choice = JOptionPane.showConfirmDialog(null, pw, "Enter Password..", JOptionPane.OK_CANCEL_OPTION, JOptionPane.PLAIN_MESSAGE);

 if (choice == JOptionPane.OK_OPTION) {
  // create ant property
  project.setNewProperty("pwd", pw.getText());
 } else {
  throw "Password required !!";
 }
</script>

<echo>$${pwd} => ${pwd}</echo>
</project>

The method JPasswordField.getText() is deprecated,
normally you would use getPassword(), but it doesn’t work.

// create ant property
var s = new String(pw.getPassword());
project.setNewProperty("pwd", s);

takes only the chararray, whereas :

// create ant property
var s = String.valueOf(pw.getPassword());
project.setNewProperty("pwd", s);

results in :

[echo] ${pwd} => function String() { [native code for String.String, arity=1] }

maybe a bug in the javascript engine !? (using jdk 1.7.0_60)

Since version 1.7.1 Ant has support for Java 1.6’s secure console input feature, see Ant Manual. What version of Eclipse and Java do you use ? Alternatively you may use :
AntForms which has a lot of input dialogs and support for passwords too
or
Jera Ant Tasks which has a query task with optional password masking

EDIT : adding a specific example using groovy..

You may use a scripting language to open a dialog, here is an example using Groovy =

<project>
<taskdef name="groovy" classname="org.codehaus.groovy.ant.Groovy"/>

 <groovy>
 import groovy.swing.SwingBuilder
 import javax.swing.JFrame

 boolean isAlive = true
 swing = new SwingBuilder()
 button = swing.button('OK')
 frame = swing.frame(title:'Password', defaultCloseOperation:JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE) {
   panel {
     pw = passwordField(columns:10)
     widget(button)
   }
 }
 button.actionPerformed = {
   // set Ant property for further processing
   properties.'password' = pw.text
   isAlive = false
 }
 frame.pack()
 frame.show()

 // prevent ant from closing the window
 while(isAlive) {
  sleep(1000)
 }
</groovy>

<echo>$${password} = ${password}</echo>

</project>

Finally write your own Inputhandler, see http://sourceforge.net/projects/emaria/files/antdocs/antinput/antinput.pdf/download for details