I'm writing an automated database build for a project I'm working on and wanted to avoid having to write batch scripts with paths that are tightly coupled to the build environment. I managed to write out the NAnt targets exactly the way that I wanted:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<project name="Project">
  <property name="sql.dir" value="${base.dir}/sql"   />
  <property name="initialize.ddl" value="${sql.dir}/initial.ddl.sql"   />

  <target name="db.init">
    <call target="db.create"  />
  </target>

  <target name="db.create" description="Creates the Database and tables">
    <exec        
        basedir="${mysql.dir}"
              program="mysql.exe"
              workingdir="${build.artifacts.dir}">
      <arg value="--user=${mysql.user}"  />
      <arg value="--password=${mysql.password}"  />
      <arg line="&lt; ${initialize.ddl}"  /> 
    </exec>
  </target>
</project>

Unfortunately when I run the db.create task it fails. I don't get any clear errors messages, only output from mysql.exe that explains how it should be called. I tried the syntax manually from the command line and it worked no problem. The line where I have the XML encoded less than sign seems to be the culprit but I can't figure out how the syntax should be.

I ended up working on it much longer than I wanted to and still never figured it out. I ended up re-doing it using a template batch script. The batch script contains some placeholders that NAnt will replace using a filter chain. This means that with some tweaks to the local properties and the NAnt task and batch script will work on any box. I think it's ugly, but it works.

Here's the NAnt Xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<project name="Project">
  <property name="sql.dir" value="${base.dir}/sql"  />
  <property name="sql.exec" value="${sql.dir}/sql-exec.bat"  />

  <target name="db.init">
    <call target="db.create"  />
  </target>

  <target name="expand.sql-exec.template">
    <copy     file="${sql.exec}.template"
            tofile="${sql.exec}"
            overwrite="true">
      <filterchain>
        <replacetokens>
          <token key="mysql.dir" value="${mysql.dir}"   />
          <token key="mysql.user" value="${mysql.user}"  />
          <token key="mysql.password" value="${mysql.password}"   />
          <token key="sql.script" value="${sql.script}"  />
        </replacetokens>
      </filterchain>
    </copy>    
  </target>

  <target name="execute.sql.script">
    <exec
        basedir="${sql.dir}"
              program="${sql.exec}"
              workingdir="${sql.dir}">
    </exec>        
  </target>

  <target name="db.create" description="Creates the Database and tables">
    <property name="sql.script" value="initial.ddl.sql"  />
    <call target="expand.sql-exec.template"  />
    <call target="execute.sql.script"  />  
  </target>
</project>

 And the sql-exec.bat.template looks like:

"@mysql.dir@\mysql.exe" --user=@mysql.user@ --password=@mysql.password@ < @sql.script@

 The variables that I'm using in both NAnt scripts are inside a file called local.properties.xml which are always machine specific and not in the version controlled files. If anyone can drop me a hint on how to get the first syntax style working please let me know.