$fixture:

   The $fixture: (or more commonly just $x:) function shortcut lets you extract simple bits of fixture information about the Ant execution cycle including active projects, targets, and running tasks. You would use $x: to supply well-defined but hard-to-obtain values from the Ant runtime like the enclosing target’s name or the script line number of the executing task. The $context: funcut is a query only feature– you cannot use it to modify fixture data.

The $fixture: funcut (and its alias $x:) is automatically installed and enabled by the standard AntXtras funcuts antlib. You can also explicitly install this funcut’s handler; read the Examples section below to see how.

The general form of the function shortcut is: $fixture:<selector>[?arg0,,argN] where <selector> is the identifier of the fixture information to extract, and arg0 through argN are optional arguments whose specific purpose and legal values depend on the given <selector>. As of AntXtras 2.0.0, you can choose one of the following as a <selector> value:

• project[name]: caller’s project’s name
• target[name]: caller’s target’s name
• thread: caller’s thread's name
• location, file, line[number]: caller’s location information
• cycle: execution cycle information query (sub-selector argument needed)

The following snippet explicitly declares the fixture function shortcut and links it to the ‘$fixture:’ and ‘$x:’ schemes. If you choose to activate shortcuts manually, you’ll need to do something like this at the start of your Ant script’s execution.

1: <oja:managefuncuts action="enable">
2:   <parameter name="x"
3:     value="${ojaf}.info.FixtureFunctionShortcut"/>
4:   <parameter name="fixture"
5:     value="${ojaf}.info.FixtureFunctionShortcut"/>
6: </oja:managefuncuts>

The following snippet uses the $x: funcut to display a entry message whenever a particular macro is invoked. If the macro is invoked from multiple targets or from a single target multiple times, the funcuts will display the correct source information (not the macro’s definition location).

1: <macrodef name="setUp">
2:   <echo level="info" message="${$iso:} in ${$x:target}:${$x:location}"/>
3:   …

The following snippet does the same as the preceding example, except this time the displayed string includes the enclosing thread's name and a ISO formatted date-time string.

1: <presetdef name="tick">
2:   <echo level="info" message="T[${$x:thread}] ${$iso:}"/>
3: </presetdef>
4: …
5: [elsewhere...]
6: <tick/>

• $x:
• $fixture:
• $context:

• The latest FixtureFunctionShortcut javadocs with more examples.