Recently, I was surprised to find that Apache Ant has no built-in means to do simple arithmetic. Thankfully, there is a way to do arithmetic with a default installation of Ant (provided you are on the Windows platform).
In the Windows Command Prompt, you can do basic arithmetic as well as bit shifting by using the “set” command with the “/a” command line switch. (Type “set /?” for more details.)
If you wanted to store the result of ${propA} + ${propB} in the answer property, you could use the exec task like so:
<exec executable="cmd.exe" outputproperty="answer">
<arg line="/c set /a ${propA} + ${propB}"/>
</exec>
Here, the command prompt executable (cmd.exe) is used with the “/c” switch to run the “set” command with the “/a” switch. Everything that follows the “/a” is the arithmetic expression to evaluate.
. I was amazed to find that Fusion could actually run my Windows 7 bootcamp partition as a virtual machine inside MacOS X. I was even more amazed to find that I could still directly boot into Windows 7 even after running it as a virtual machine. I figured that Windows would have a complete fit after having the underlying hardware swapped in and out so frequently.
so I could make this website look pretty. Normally, I would just order the book from Amazon.com because it’s usually much cheaper than the local bookstore, but I was feeling impatient and wanted to start reading the book right away.