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.
Use the propertyregex task from Ant Contrib.
I think you want:
<propertyregex property="propB"
input="${propA}"
regexp=" "
replace="_"
global="true" />
Unfortunately the examples given aren't terribly clear, but it's worth trying that. You should also check what happens if there aren't any underscores - you may need to use the defaultValue option as well.
Properties can't be changed but antContrib vars (http://ant-contrib.sourceforge.net/tasks/tasks/variable_task.html ) can.
Here is a macro to do a find/replace on a var:
<macrodef name="replaceVarText">
<attribute name="varName" />
<attribute name="from" />
<attribute name="to" />
<sequential>
<local name="replacedText"/>
<local name="textToReplace"/>
<local name="fromProp"/>
<local name="toProp"/>
<property name="textToReplace" value = "${@{varName}}"/>
<property name="fromProp" value = "@{from}"/>
<property name="toProp" value = "@{to}"/>
<script language="javascript">
project.setProperty("replacedText",project.getProperty("textToReplace").split(project.getProperty("fromProp")).join(project.getProperty("toProp")));
</script>
<ac:var name="@{varName}" value = "${replacedText}"/>
</sequential>
</macrodef>
Then call the macro like:
<ac:var name="updatedText" value="${oldText}"/>
<current:replaceVarText varName="updatedText" from="." to="_" />
<echo message="Updated Text will be ${updatedText}"/>
Code above uses javascript split then join, which is faster than regex. "local" properties are passed to JavaScript so no property leakage.