Expand a relative path in Ant script, for Inkscape

Question

I'd like to write an Ant script that calls an external utility (Inkscape, in fact) that needs a full path. Right now I have

<exec executable="${inkscape.path}">
    <arg value="--file=build_exe/splash.svg" />
    <arg value="--export-png=build_exe/splash.png" />
    <arg value="-C" />
</exec>

On Windows, Inkscape requires absolute paths. So how can I coax Ant to make build_exe/filename into an absolute path for me? Or, alternately, is there a workaround for Inkscape (maybe setting the working directory)?

Answer 1

use this:

<property name="x" location="folder/file.txt" />

the ${X} value will be the absolute path of the file relative to the ${basedir} value.

Answer 2

I would declare

<property file="my_config.properties"/>

and I would write this path in the file my_config.properties. Your users will just have to modify this config file.