I have the following defined in a file called build-dependencies.xml <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <project name="build-dependencies"> ... <path id="common-jars"> <fileset file="artifacts/project-1/jar/some*.jar" /> <fileset file="artifacts/project-2/jar/someother*.jar" /> </path> ... </project> I include it at the top of my build.xml file. Now I need to make the artifacts folder a parameter so it can be changed during execution of different targets. Having this... <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <project name="build-dependencies"> ... <path id="common-jars"> <fileset file="${artifacts}/project-1/jar/some*.jar" /> <fileset file="${artifacts}/project-2/jar/someother*.jar" /> </path> ... </project> ...and defining an "artifacts" property (and changing it) in the target does not work because it seems that the property substitution happens when the path is defined in build-dependencies.xml How can I solve this? One way I was thinking was to have a parameterized macro and call that before the path is actually used, but that seems not elegant. Something like this: <macrodef name="create-common-jars"> <attribute name="artifacts"/> <sequential> <path id="common-jars"> <fileset file="@{artifacts}/project-1/jar/some*.jar" /> <fileset file="@{artifacts}/project-2/jar/someother*.jar" /> </path> </sequential> </macrodef>