I tried the property file task. But everytime I run the script, it rewrites the properties file and therefore always starts from 0 instead of going onto the next higher number, in this case "1".

Are there any examples on how to increment existing numbers rather than taking current time and date as it is explained in the documentation? Ant would have to be able to read off the properties file first to be able to increment it. Does Ant support this?

Thanks for all your help

Kerstin

I figured it out how to keep it incrementing, rather than overwriting, but for some reason it doesn't resolve the key="build.number" so I can call it later to label the sources in VSS"

I will add the code and error message. 

Thanks, Kerstin

Code:

<target name="usage">

<propertyfile file="./build.properties">
	<entry key="minor.number" type="int" operation="+" value="1" pattern="00"/>
    </propertyfile>
   
   <echo message= "Build ${minor.number}"/>
    
</target>

error:


[propertyfile] Updating property file: (rather long path to)  .....\build.properties
    Property ${minor.number} has not been set
     [echo] Build ${minor.number}
     [echo] 

BUILD SUCCESSFUL

I needed Ant to do this on a recent project...but I wanted it to be built into the resulting product itself. What I did was to use a custom ant task to generate a JAVA source file containing the version, build number etc. Values were taken from a property file (maj version, minor version, build number) which kept track of the build number.

Works very well. It might not be quite what you want but it does exactly what we want it to do

/********************************************************************
* Simple class that generates a java file containing a 
* build version sequence number.
*
* Version 1.0: By gremlin@indigo.ie June 12 2001
*
* Build sequence numbers are of the form:
*
* <version>.<subversion>:<buildnumber>
*
* The class generated exposes the 
*
*  getBuildVersion();         // the whole lot
*  getBuildNumber();         // the build number
*  getVersion();          // the build/product version
*  getRevision();          // the build/product update/revision
*  toString();              // the build/product update/revision
*
* The ant task works by keeping track of the buildnumber in a file
* stored within the /var/ant directory and incrementing it after
* creating the simple java class file.
*
*********************************************************************/

import org.apache.tools.ant.BuildException;
import org.apache.tools.ant.Task;

import java.util.*;
import java.io.*;

public class BuildVersion extends Task 
{
  private String version="0";
  private String revision="0";
  private long  buildNumber = -1;
  private String baseDir=null;  // The root of the source tree
  private String projectName="UKNOWN";
  private String packageName=null;
  
/*********************************************************************
* Creates the file
**********************************************************************/
  public void execute() throws BuildException 
  {
    buildNumber = getNextBuildNumber();
 PrintStream out = null;
 System.out.println("    [build] creating : "+getFilename());
 try
  {
    out = new PrintStream( new FileOutputStream(getFilename()));
    
      out.println("/***************************************************/");
       out.println("// AUTO GENERATED BY ANT ");
    out.println("// "+projectName+" Build = "+version+"."+revision+"."+buildNumber);
    out.println("// File : "+getFilename());
    out.println();
    if(packageName != null )
     {
   out.println("package "+packageName+";");
     out.println();
     }
   out.println("import java.util.Date;");
   out.println();
   out.println("public class BuildVersion");
   out.println("{");
   out.println("  public String toString() {return getBuildVersion();}");
   out.println("  public String getBuildVersion() { return \""+version+"."+revision+"."+buildNumber+"\"; }");
   out.println("  public String getBuildNumber() {return \""+buildNumber+"\";}");
   out.println("  public String getVersion() {return \""+version+"\";}");
   out.println("  public String getRevision() {return \""+revision+"\";}");
   out.println("  public String getBuildDate() {return \""+(new Date()).toString()+"\";}");
   out.println("}");
   out.println("/******************** END OF FILE ***************/");
   out.println();
  }
  catch(Exception ex)
  {
    throw new BuildException(ex.getMessage());
  }
  finally
  {
    if( out != null ) 
     {
    try{ out.close(); out=null;} catch(Exception ex1){;}
  }
  }
  }
  
/*********************************************************************
* generates the output file name
**********************************************************************/
File getFilename()
{
  File ret = null;
  String par = null;
  
  if( packageName == null ) return new File("BuildVersion.java");
  par = packageName.replace('.','/');
  par += "/BuildVersion.java";
  if(baseDir!= null) par = ""+baseDir+"/"+par;
  
  return new File(par);
}

/*********************************************************************
* Sets the product version
**********************************************************************/
  public void setVersion(String msg) 
  {
    version = msg;
  }
  
  
/*********************************************************************
* Sets the product revision
**********************************************************************/
  public void setReVision(String msg) 
  {
    revision = msg;
  }
  
  
 /*********************************************************************
* Sets the basedir of the source tree.
**********************************************************************/
public void setBaseDir(String dir)
{
  baseDir = dir;
}
   
 /*********************************************************************
* Sets the package name
**********************************************************************/
public void setPackageName(String packageName)
{
  this.packageName = packageName;
}
 
 /*********************************************************************
* Sets the project name of the source tree.
**********************************************************************/
public void setProductName(String name)
{
  projectName = name;
}

/*********************************************************************
* This function gets the next build sequence generating
* storage in "/var/ant" as appropriate and overwriting it
* afterwards.
*
* Returns -1 if cannot access file etc
**********************************************************************/
long getNextBuildNumber()
{
  File theFile = new File("/var/ant/"+projectName+"_"+version+"_"+revision+".txt");
  Properties prop = new Properties();
  long ver = -1;
  InputStream input = null;
  OutputStream output = null;
  
  try
  {
             // 1 - Read file
 //     System.out.println("\t\tReading Configuration in '"+theFile+"'");
      if( theFile.exists())
   {
        input = new FileInputStream(theFile);
        prop.load(input);
        input.close();
  input = null;
   } 
     if( prop.containsKey("buildnumber"))
    ver = (new Integer((String)prop.get("buildnumber"))).longValue();
  else 
    ver = 0;
             // 2 - update and re-write
 prop.put("buildnumber",""+(++ver));
    output = new FileOutputStream(theFile);
 prop.store(output,"Build Number System for "+projectName);
 output.close();
 output = null;
// System.out.println("Build number = "+ver);
  }
  catch(Exception ex)
  {
    ver =  -1;
  }
    finally
    {
      try
      {
        if( input != null ) input.close();
        if( output != null ) output.close();
      }
      catch(Exception n){;}
    }
  return ver;
} 
  
}


/*************** END OF FILE *************************************/