Phing: get a filename without the extension - phing

Question

Given a Phing loop such as this
<target name="lessc">
<exec command="lessc ${absolute-filename}" logoutput="false" output="${project.basedir}/public/assets/css/libraries/${filename}" />
</target>
<target name="build-in-loop">
<foreach param="filename" absparam="absolute-filename" target="lessc">
<fileset dir="${project.basedir}/assets/less/libraries/">
<include name="*.less"/>
</fileset>
</foreach>
</target>
In target lessc, how can I extract the file name without extension from the variable absolute-filename? In the example above, the output file will have the extension .less - obviously not what I need.
I know there is a task made for less, and that I could extend Phing to support this specific operation, but I would like to know first if Phing basically allows simple string manipulation on variables.

Answer 1

Found the answer, not sure if it's the best solution, but works for me:
just need to use the mapper tag
<mapper type="glob" from="*.less" to="*"/>
in the foreach loop, like this:
<target name="build-in-loop">
<foreach param="filename" absparam="absolute-filename" target="lessc">
<fileset dir="${project.basedir}/assets/less/libraries/">
<include name="*.less"/>
</fileset>
</foreach>
</target>
At this point, in the variable ${filename} in the target task there will be the filename without extension.