BusyB: Symbols

Wherever you enter text in a busyb build file, busyb will do two levels of substitution:

any text of the form $(NAME) is replaced with the value of the NAME environment variable, if there is one. If there is no NAME environment variable, then busyb will pass the $(NAME) text through unchanged
any text of the form !(NAME) is replace with the value of the internal busyb symbol NAME. If there is no busyb symbol NAME, the text is left unchanged. Busyb uses symbols to pass values such as log files around internally that you wouldn't necessarily want exported to the system environment.

As an example of the use of environment variables, perhaps you would want a step which echos out the path used in a build:

    <step>
      <cmd>echo Value of PATH: $(PATH)</cmd>
     </step>

For an example of the !(NAME) symbols, see the description of sendMail.

You can set both environment variables and symbols on the command line when you start busyb.