Gary,
>>> What are the arguments in favor of not changing it?
I can't think of any language that does not evaluate all arguments to a
subroutine call because invoking that subroutine. NAnt is using XML elements
much like subroutine calls where all attributes are evaluated before the
element processor is called. It's a fairly universal convention that shouldn't
be casually tossed aside.
What people are expecting here is that the if-attribute of various NAnt
elements is really a shorthand notation for an if-element wrapper around the
statement. Trying to mandate that usage would be a real kludge.
If you want to conditionalize single statements, then we need a new if task, or
at least a new attribute on the existing if task. The main attribute of the
current if task if "test". The elements enclosed by the <if>...</if> are
assumed to be conditionalized by that test attribute.
We could add a new "stmt" attribute whose string value is an entire XML element
whose whole execution is to be conditionalized on "test" attribute. For
example,
<if test="..." stmt="<mkdir ... />" />
In this example, the <mkdir> statement would be parsed and executed ONLY if the
test attribute were true. This notation would, of course, be only a shorthand
for the more verbose
<if test="...">
<mkdir ... />
</if>
Merrill
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