Replacing characters in Ant property

Question

Is there a simple way of taking the value of a property and then copy it to another property with certain characters replaced?

Say propA=This is a value. I want to replace all the spaces in it into underscores, resulting in propB=This_is_a_value.

Answer 1

Use the propertyregex task from Ant Contrib.

I think you want:

<propertyregex property="propB"
               input="$(propA)"
               regexp=" "
               replace="_"
               global="true" />

Unfortunately the examples given aren't terribly clear, but it's worth trying that. You should also check what happens if there aren't any underscores - you may need to use the defaultValue option as well.

Answer 2

Thanks. I found this answer useful too, but careful those who are copying and pasting this, as those should be {} brackets around the propA: input="${propA}"

Paul.