Ant offers some XML features like the xslt task, which transforms XML files into other files. But unfortunately, with Ant you can’t make simple XPath Queries on a specific XML file.

 

Luckily, there is a nice open source solution called XmlTask, which offers many possibilities to work with XML files.

 

1. Download the latest version of XmlTask from http://xmltask.sf.net
2. Create a task definition in Ant

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   <taskdef name="xmltask" classname="com.oopsconsultancy.xmltask.ant.XmlTask" classpath="./xmltask-v1.15.1.jar" />

3. Use it with the <xmltask> definition
   
   For example, read out the number of a specific node in the XML file:

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   <xmltask source="someFile.xml"> <copy path="count(//aNode)" property="numberOfNodes" /> </xmltask>

   Or change an attribute:

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   <xmltask source="someFile.xml" dest="toAnotherFile.xml"> <attr path="//aNode[1]" attr="enabled" value="true"/> </xmltask>

 

There are many other possibilites to work with XML files inside Ant. Check out the documentation at http://xmltask.sf.net.

 

 

 

 

1. If you are using Groovy in your Ant-build (as you have shown in a previous post), then you could also use Groovy for very expressive XML manipulation…

   http://groovy.codehaus.org/Processing+XML

   Comment by Jonas — 18.5.2009 @ 23:49

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