Is there any reasonable way to pull out a sequence of test steps that should depend on some parameters? For example, you might want to be able to say <procedure name="login"> <param name="username" value="tim" /> <param name="password" value="lutefisk" /> </procedure> The only way I know of to name a sequence of test steps is with XML entities, but they don't take parameters.

If you use ant properties you have to avoid name conflicts, because you can only set them once, and even then you need to wrap your targets with an antcall if you want to use the same sequence in two different tests with different parameters.

I suppose the easiest thing to do is use dynamic parameters but I would like to avoid writing a custom step (to set the parameters), and I don't really like the idea of controlling behavior with what amount to global variables.

If test steps could find their context across an antcall I would modularize my tests by pulling procedures out into targets that took arguments in ant properties. This would end the need to write a DTD, but it would require reworking the engine.