In addition, you can import environment variables as properties to make minor tweaks from one environment to another. To import environment variables from your OS as properties prepended with env., you'd use the property element:
<property environment="env"/>The environment variables can be used in a property file to define other properties:
src=${env.WS}/src
classes=${env.WS}/classes
jardir=${env.WS}/jars
This becomes useful if some members of your team use Linux while others use Windows. It appears Linux users are a bit picky about putting directories off the root directory--go figure. Windows users are generally not as picky. Specify the root for the application workspace with an environment variable and you can keep both developers happy.