Question

When I compile my project in Netbeans, I want to automatically generate a file that includes a build number that automatically increments and date, so I added the following to my projects build.xml file.

<target name="-pre-jar" >
    <propertyfile file="${src.dir}\buildstring.txt" >
        <entry key="devbuild" value="1" type="int" operation="+"/>
        <entry key="devbuildtime" type="date" value="now" pattern="yyyy MM dd hh_mm" />
    </propertyfile>
</target>

When the Ant task executes, Ant automatically adds a date stamp as the first line of the file

#Tue, 12 Jun 2012 16:09:24 -0500
devbuild=8
devbuildtime=2012 06 12 04_09

Is there any way to stop Ant from automatically adding the first line with the date comment?

Answer 1

The PropertyFile Ant task is implemented using a java.util.Properties object. The Properties.store() method is documented with the following note:

Next, a comment line is always written, consisting of an ASCII # character, the current date and time (as if produced by the toString method of Date for the current time), and a line separator as generated by the Writer.

Therefore, the date comment cannot be disabled using the PropertyFile task. Removing the date comment would require a different solution, such as post-processing the properties file or writing the properties file using a different technique (for example, using an Ant script or custom Ant task).

See: Remove comments in properties file java