Plugin file format - Variable expansion

Much of the plugin file format allows variables to be expanded. This simplifies the process of defining plugins and allows paths, etc. not to be hard coded.

The format of expansions is relatively simple. A string is expanded by replacing each occurrence of ${variable name} with the value of the variable. Thus, for example, when defining a shared library, the path to the library can be set as follows:

<library path="${plugin.dir}/library.so"/>

Variables are resolved in some context or other (the documentation for the attribute or element supporting expansion will indicate what the context is). There most common contexts is the plugin context.

The character '$' may be escaped by repeating it. So, if we have some variable, foo, with value, bar, then the following strings expand:

The global context first looks for variables that are application defined. Applications can add as many global variables as they wish. Check the application documentation to see which variables are defined.

If the variable is still not found, then the context will check the folling variables in the order below, returning the first one found.

Variable env.name

This is a family of variables beginning with env..

If the variable name starts with env. the context does then it will take the remainder of the name and try find an environment variable with that name, returning that.

The plugin context searches for variables in the following order.

First plugin defined variables are checked. These are created by having variable elements in the plugin specification (see the Element reference). For example, the following code creates two variables. The first is named foo with value bar and the second is called mars with value chocolate bar.

<variable name="foo" value="bar"/>
<variable name="mars" value="chocolate ${foo}"/>
			

Variable plugin.id

This is the id attribute of the plugin.

Variable plugin.dir

This is the absolute directory path in which the plugin specification file is found.

Variable plugin.version

This is the version attribute of the plugin.

If the variable still has not been found, then the global context will be searched for the variable.