Return value when internally calling target with phing/phingcall - return-value

Question

I am calling a target by means of phingcall command.
I want to pass back a status variable from the called target or at least change the existing value from the calling target.
Goal: I want to branch in my main target controlling logic if the sub target fails which I indicate with a property.
The code below does not work. Any idea how to make it work or an altertive approach for my goal?
Thanks,
Juergen
<target name="main">
<echo>target a</echo>
<echo>${bOk}</echo>
<exec command="echo 1" outputProperty="bOk" />
<echo>bOk is 1: ${bOk}</echo>
<phingcall inheritRefs="true" target="sub">
</phingcall>
<echo>bOk should now be 0: ${bOk}</echo>
</target>
<target name="sub">
<echo>target b</echo>
<echo>bOk is 1: ${bOk}</echo>
<exec command="echo 0" outputProperty="bOk" />
<echo>bOk now is 0: ${bOk}</echo>
</target>
The problem here is that
<echo>bOk should now be 0: ${bOk}</echo>
echos
bOk should now be 0: 1

Answer 1

Even with the great help of #phing IRC I couldn't solve the problem.
I decided to write a custom task to account for data passing between targets:
<?php
require_once "phing/Task.php";
class rvGlobalTask extends Task {
private static $bOk = 1;
private $sMode = null;
private $bValue = null;
private $outputProperty = null;
public function setSMode( $sMode ) {
$this->sMode = $sMode;
}
public function setBValue( $bValue ) {
$this->bValue = $bValue;
}
public function setOutputProperty( $outputProperty ) {
$this->outputProperty = $outputProperty;
}
public function main() {
if ( $this->sMode == "set" ) {
rvGlobalTask::$bOk = $this->bValue;
} else {
$this->project->setProperty(
$this->outputProperty,
rvGlobalTask::$bOk
);
}
}
}
?>
This works fine for my problem. Perhaps someone else finds this useful as well.

Answer 2

Here's how you use an ExecTask to capture output.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project name="example" default="check-composer">
<!-- set a property to contain the output -->
<property name="whichComposer" value="" />
<!-- check if composer (getcomposer.org) is installed globally -->
<target name="check-composer">
<!-- put the output of "which" in our property -->
<exec command="which composer" outputProperty="whichComposer" />
<!-- act on what we found out -->
<if>
<contains string="${whichComposer}" substring="composer" />
<then>
<echo>Composer installed at ${whichComposer}</echo>
</then>
<else>
<echo message="better install composer. ${whichComposer}"/>
</else>
</if>
</target>
</project>