izpack and build.properties

Question

Does anyone know how to pass build properties to izpack in ANT.

I have a working izpack install in ANT and it works fine but I have to remember to manually put in thing like version number etc.. which are in my build.properties file.

TIA

Answer 1

You can reference Ant properties using the @{} syntax in IzPack install definitions:

<installation version="1.0">
      <!-- Ant properties in this file can be referenced with @{},
           otherwise use variables below in installer files with ${} -->
      <info>
        <appname>@{product.name}</appname>
        <appversion>@{product.version}</appversion>
        <uninstaller name="remove.task" path="${INSTALL_PATH}/Uninstall" write="yes"/>
      </info>
...

Source

Answer 2

It seems that in order to propagate all project properties to the the izpack compiler you need to set the inheritAll attribute to "true".

<izpack input="install-definition.xml"
    output="${output.dir}/${product.short.name}-${product.version}-install.jar"
    installerType="standard"
    inheritAll="true"
    basedir="${temp.dir}" />

Then in your installation definition file reference the property using @{product.version}

However, I could not find it the documentation so it may inherit more than properties.

Answer 3

I found a way. I copy the install to my dist folder and replace at that point.

<copy file="install.xml" todir="${output.dir}" overwrite="true">
  <filterset>
    <filter token="release.version" value="${release.version}"/>
  </filterset>
</copy>

later on:

<target name="installer" description="Build installer" depends="all">
  <izpack input="${output.dir}/install.xml" output="c:/temp/test.jar" basedir="${release.dir}"/>
    </target>