Finally Ant 1.6. supports a macrodef target. This article provides a not so short example to see macrodefs in action.

There are three different ways to pass arguments to a macro:

• as an attribute – this is the easiest way and the one you will most likely use the most
• as text content – if you have to pass large amounts of text to your macro, this is probably the way to go
• as element content – if you have to pass complex data or other ant tasks into your macro

And you can combine these ways as you can see in fancy-echo-comb.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<project name="whatever" default="help" basedir=".">

  <!-- parameter as attribute -->
  <macrodef name="fancy-echo">
    <attribute name="text" default="default value"/>
    <sequential>
      <echo message="by attribute"/>
      <echo message="this is the simple example with parameter @{text}"/>
    </sequential>
  </macrodef>

  <!-- parameter as text content -->
  <macrodef name="fancy-echo-2">
    <text name="text"/>
    <sequential>
      <echo message="by text"/>
      <echo message="@{text}"/>
    </sequential>
  </macrodef>

  <!-- parameter as child element -->
  <macrodef name="fancy-echo-element">
    <element name="content"/>
    <sequential>
      <echo message="by element"/>
      <content/>
    </sequential>
  </macrodef>

  <!-- parameter as text content and attribute-->
  <macrodef name="fancy-echo-comb">
    <attribute name="text-attr" default="default value"/>
    <text name="text"/>
    <sequential>
      <echo message="a combination"/>
      <echo message="text content"/>
      <echo message="@{text}"/>
      <echo message="text attribute"/>
      <echo message="@{text-attr}"/>
    </sequential>
  </macrodef>

  <!-- usage examples -->
  <target name="help" description="print this help">
    <fancy-echo text="some text"/>
    <echo/>
    <fancy-echo/>
    <echo/>
    <fancy-echo-2>use this way for longer text with
with newlines etc.</fancy-echo-2>
    <echo/>
    <fancy-echo-element>
      <content>
        <echo>To pass an ant task into a macro, this is the way to go.</echo>
      </content>
    </fancy-echo-element>
    <echo/>
    <fancy-echo-comb text-attr="and an additional attribute">longer text with
with newlines
etc.</fancy-echo-comb>
  </target>
</project>

prints:

Buildfile: build.xml

help:
     [echo] by attribute
     [echo] this is the simple example with parameter some text

     [echo] by attribute
     [echo] this is the simple example with parameter default value

     [echo] by text
     [echo] longer text with
     [echo] with newlines
     [echo] etc.

     [echo] by element
     [echo] To pass an ant task into a macro, this is the way to go.

     [echo] a combination
     [echo] text content
     [echo] use this way for longer text with
     [echo] with newlines etc.
     [echo] text attribute
     [echo] and an additional attribute

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 0 seconds

BTW, here are two books you might find useful, if you work with ant: