DO NOT REPLY [Bug 29329] New: - enhancement request

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http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=29329

enhancement request

           Summary: enhancement request
           Product: Ant
           Version: 1.6.1
          Platform: All
        OS/Version: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: Enhancement
          Priority: Other
         Component: Other
        AssignedTo: dev@ant.apache.org
        ReportedBy: jwenners@incsystem.com


I'm sure you've heard this before, but after spending a few hours hacking 
together some convoluted ant logic to handle some conditional tasks, I feel 
something needs to be done.

First, let me say that ant is great, and I've used it for a few years now.

My only complaint is about conditionals.  It requires such convoluted logic, 
that a few simple if else then constructs become a huge mess which requires you 
to create "fake" targets (since that is the only tag that supports conditional 
execution) to set properties.  What should have been a half page of simple 
logic has become two pages of hacks to set various properties in "fake" targets 
in order to get ant to do what I want.

There has to be a better solution than what currently exists.
I would eagerly sacrafice backwards compatibility in order to get better 
condition constructs.  Having <antcall> support conditionals, and improving the 
existing "if" syntax to checking more than if a property has been defined would 
be huge improvements.

For example <target ...    if="project == 'my_project' and exists ${src_dir}"/>

That's my request.
Anyway, thanks again for making an otherwise great tool.

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