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Asked: 2026-05-11T08:02:11+00:00

Summary: How do I expand a property with value download\${bulidmode}\project\setup.msi to download\Debug\project\setup.msi if the

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Summary:

How do I expand a property with value ‘download\${bulidmode}\project\setup.msi’ to ‘download\Debug\project\setup.msi’ if the property buildmode contained debug so I can use it as the file=” part of < copy >

Detail:

I have a bit of a requirement to be able to expand properties within a string in nant.

For example I have a target that is copying file A to B. A and B both come from a simple two field CSV file which I’m iterating through using 

<foreach item='Line' in='filelist.csv' delim=',' property='source.file,target.file'>      <property name='sourcefile' value='${path::combine(source.dir,source)}' />      <property name='targetfile' value='${path::combine(download.dir,destination)}' />     <echo message='Copy ${sourcefile} to ${targetfile}' />      <copy file='${sourcefile' tofile='${destination}' />  </foreach>

and the filelist.csv will be

build\manifest.xml  solutiondirectory\setup-proj-directory\Release\setupproj.msi,ProductA\ProductA.msi solutiondirectory\another-proj-dir\Release\setupproj.msi,ProductB\ProductB.msi

(The reason we split these out is that we write multi-tiered applications and deploy by MSI to each tier – so one product has multiple msi’s all built with the same version numbers)

Anyway – I want to change this to that I no longer have ‘Release’ in the filelist.csv file but something like ${build.mode}. I would wrap the above code with a

<foreach item='String' in='Release,Debug' delim=',' property='build.mode'> ....as above </foreach>

and the property embedded within the string in the file gets expanded.

I’ve been beating my head against a brick wall for a few hours, but just can’t figure it out.

Thanks

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1 Answer

  1. It is possible with a custom function :

    <?xml version='1.0'?> <project>     <script language='C#' prefix='vbfox' >         <code>             <![CDATA[             [Function('expand')]             public string ExpandString(string str)             {                 return Project.Properties.ExpandProperties(str, Location.UnknownLocation);             }             ]]>         </code>     </script>     <property name='hello' value='{path::combine('_hello_', '_world_')}' />     <property name='hello' value='${'$' + hello}' />     <echo message='${hello}' />     <echo message='${vbfox::expand(hello)}' /> </project>
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