Delayed properties resolving

Dear CruiseControl users and developers,

We have the following problem. In our project (building of voices for 
text-to-speech synthesis) we need dozen of properties filled by a default 
value. The values are mostly the same, but in general, any of them may differ 
for a particular voice. So, our "general" project file contains lines like:

<property name="build.memory.speech" value="1000000000"/>
<property name="build.memory.feats" value="800000000"/>
<property name="build.inventory.DAC" value="1.0"/>
<property name="build.inventory.DGC" value="1.0"/>
<property name="build.inventory.IGC" value="1.0"/>
... and so on, about 30 in total

However, it also defines property USING that values (to simplify):

<property name="build.args.inventory_builder"
  value="-mf ${build.memory.feats} -mw ${build.memory.speech} -dac  
${build.inventory.DAC} -dgc ${build.inventory.DGC} -igc 
${build.inventory.IGC}  ... and those others ... "/>

resulting in:

'build.args.inventory_builder' = "-mf  800000000 -mw 1000000000 -dac  1.0 -dgc 
1.0 -igc 1.0  ... "



And we include sub-projects for the individual voices:

<include.projects
  file="${root.dir}/${cruise.projects.dir}/inventory_spkr_PP.cruise" />
<include.projects
  file="${root.dir}/${cruise.projects.dir}/inventory_spkr_AJ.cruise" />
... and so on

  
Well, the problem is, when we want to change a property, 
e.g. 'build.inventory.IGC' from 1.0 to 1.3 for one of the voices. We can 
defined the property again in the required voice-building project, but the 
new value will NOT appear in  the 'build.args.inventory_builder' property! So 
instead of the required:

'build.args.inventory_builder' = "-mf  800000000 -mw 1000000000 -dac  1.0 -dgc 
1.0 -igc 1.3  ... "

we still have:

'build.args.inventory_builder' = "-mf  800000000 -mw 1000000000 -dac  1.0 -dgc 
1.0 -igc 1.0  ... "


Of course they will not appear there - the 'build.args.inventory_builder' is 
resolved on the level of the general file, and there is 
no 'build.inventory.IGC' property to be resolved 
in 'build.args.inventory_builder' in the particular project (although the 
value of the property is changed).

Temporarily, we solved it by repetition of the property (the arguments 
contain ''... -igc 1.0 ... -igc 1.3 ..."), which is tool-dependent (some 
tools take the value of the fist occurrence, some of the last), not 
persistent, neither very robust (we had to bypass one tool which disliked an 
option defined twice ...).


So, what to do with it?

- there already is a way of achieving it. Please, if you know the way, let me 
know ...
- change the behavior of CC to resolve the properties at the last moment, 
just before they are used. However, it may change the behavior of CC, and 
someone may rely on it. Therefore, I expect it is hardly acceptable
- add new optional attribute to <property /> tag, something like 
like "delayresolving=true", with default to "false" if not set; that would 
cause the resolving of properties to the last moment before they are required; 
the original behavior will stay unaffected
- ??? any better/cool idea?


If you think that the idea is interesting and CC users may benefit from it, I 
really could try to code any of your suggestions into CC (kind of looking 
forward into it, as the update of properties 
http://jira.public.thoughtworks.org/browse/CC-952 was quite fun). For us it 
would definitely made the configuration much more readable and easier to 
understood.

Thank you very much for your answers and suggestions.
Kind regards,
Dan

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