The problem with this is that the property "file.available" cannot be redefined a second time now because the macrodef lives outside of any target
and so this property resides on top level.
Is this essentially the problem you are facing?
That is exactly the problem I am facing.
My answer would be that I am not opposing the use of <local> properties inside of macrodef calls anyway. All that I am opposed to is implementing the <attribute> functionality with the same <local> mechanism.
I always assumed that the attributes were local only to the macrodef anyway. I must have missed a bunch of the developer conversation. What purpose would <local> serve to an attribute that is already only in local scope? As far as I can tell, the current patch doesn't make <attribute>'s global. What does <local> have to do with <attribute>'s???? Man, I must really be missing something here.
test.file is an <attribute>. It is not a property of any kind, local or otherwise. If you want to say that any actual properties, defined within a call to a <macrodef>
either by invoking a target or directly are local, as the "file.available" property above, this garners no opposition from me.
Well, that's a relief. So, I guess I don't understand what all the opposition is about then? Can't we add <local> so that It works for tasks that return actual properties and leave it at that? You macrodef would look like this...
<macrodef name="A">
<attribute name="test.file"/>
<sequential>
<local name="file.available"/> <!-- this is the part that makes this macrodef non-useless. -->
<available property="file.available" value = "yes" file="@{test.file}"/>
<property name="file.available" value="no"/>
<echo>Is @{test.file} available? ${file.available}.</echo>
</sequential>
</macrodef>
...
<A test.file="foo.bar"/>
...
<A test.file="bar.food"/>
I'm also not clear on the @{test.file} syntax. I'm using ${test.file} and it works just fine. Actually, I just tried it and the @ syntax doesn't currently work (having applied the <local> patch). Is this what all the hubbub is about? If you are saying that you'd approve of the local patch if it changed the syntax for accessing <attribute>'s to @{attribute.name} from ${attribute.name}, then lets do it! I don't care what the syntax is for accessing <attribute>'s as long as I can use <local name="someproperty"/> to keep the property (not attribute, mind you) "someproperty" resettable upon the next call to the same macrodef rather than being set globally and, therefore, permanently the first time the macrodef is called. Like I've said before, without this functionality, the above macrodef is totally useless.
Is this doable or is there some technical issue standing in the way?
Jake
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