diff --git a/WHATSNEW b/WHATSNEW
index d08a03382..a73e22a26 100644
--- a/WHATSNEW
+++ b/WHATSNEW
@@ -127,6 +127,10 @@ Fixed bugs:
 * Regression: Path subclasses that overrode list() stopped working in
   resourceCollection contexts in Ant 1.7.0. Bugzilla 42967.
 
+* <property> supports loading from xml based property definition.
+  Bugzilla 42946
+  
+
 Other changes:
 --------------
 * <script> now has basic support for JavaFX scripts
diff --git a/docs/manual/CoreTasks/property.html b/docs/manual/CoreTasks/property.html
index c02a1c10c..c7b25d2e6 100644
--- a/docs/manual/CoreTasks/property.html
+++ b/docs/manual/CoreTasks/property.html
@@ -57,6 +57,10 @@ properties. These references are resolved at the time these properties are set.
 This also holds for properties loaded from a property file.</p>
 <p>A list of predefined properties can be found <a
 href="../using.html#built-in-props">here</a>.</p>
+<p>Since Ant 1.7.1 it is possible to load properties defined in xml
+according to <a href="http://java.sun.com/dtd/properties.dtd">Suns DTD</a>,
+if Java5+ is present. For this the name of the file, resource or url has 
+to end with <tt>.xml</tt>.</p>
 
 <h4>OpenVMS Users</h4>
 <p>With the <code>environment</code> attribute this task will load all defined
diff --git a/src/etc/testcases/taskdefs/property.xml b/src/etc/testcases/taskdefs/property.xml
index baa07f004..78a4e176e 100644
--- a/src/etc/testcases/taskdefs/property.xml
+++ b/src/etc/testcases/taskdefs/property.xml
@@ -2,6 +2,13 @@
 
 <project name="property-test" basedir="." default="test1">
 
+  <property name="tmp.dir" value="_tmpdir_"/>
+  <available property="java5+" classname="java.lang.Iterable"/>
+
+  <target name="tearDown">
+    <delete dir="${tmp.dir}"/>
+  </target>
+
   <target name="test1">
     <property environment="testenv"/>
   </target>
@@ -46,4 +53,24 @@
     <echo>b is ${b}</echo>
   </target>
 
+  <target name="genXmlPropFile">
+    <mkdir dir="${tmp.dir}"/>  
+    <echo file="${tmp.dir}/props.xml">&lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot; encoding=&quot;UTF-8&quot;?&gt;
+&lt;!DOCTYPE properties SYSTEM &quot;http://java.sun.com/dtd/properties.dtd&quot;&gt;
+&lt;properties version=&quot;1.0&quot;&gt;
+    &lt;comment&gt;
+        Example of property definition according to Suns DTD as
+        specified in the Java5 docs and http://java.sun.com/dtd/properties.dtd.
+    &lt;/comment&gt;
+    &lt;entry key=&quot;xml.one&quot;&gt;ONE&lt;/entry&gt;
+    &lt;entry key=&quot;xml.two&quot;&gt;TWO&lt;/entry&gt;
+&lt;/properties&gt;
+    </echo>  
+  </target>      
+
+  <target name="testXmlProperty.internal" depends="genXmlPropFile" if="java5+">
+      <property file="${tmp.dir}/props.xml"/>
+  </target>    
+  <target name="testXmlProperty" depends="testXmlProperty.internal"/>  
+
 </project>
diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Property.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Property.java
index 3549fa763..532da2506 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Property.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/Property.java
@@ -21,6 +21,8 @@ import java.io.File;
 import java.io.FileInputStream;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.InputStream;
+import java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException;
+import java.lang.reflect.Method;
 import java.net.URL;
 import java.util.Enumeration;
 import java.util.HashMap;
@@ -36,6 +38,7 @@ import org.apache.tools.ant.PropertyHelper;
 import org.apache.tools.ant.Task;
 import org.apache.tools.ant.types.Path;
 import org.apache.tools.ant.types.Reference;
+import org.apache.tools.ant.util.ReflectUtil;
 
 /**
  * Sets a property by name, or set of properties (from file or
@@ -499,7 +502,7 @@ public class Property extends Task {
         try {
             InputStream is = url.openStream();
             try {
-                props.load(is);
+                loadProperties(props, is, url.getFile().endsWith(".xml"));
             } finally {
                 if (is != null) {
                     is.close();
@@ -511,6 +514,39 @@ public class Property extends Task {
         }
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Loads the properties defined in the InputStream into the given
+     * property. On Java5+ it supports reading from XML based property 
+     * definition.
+     * @param props The property object to load into
+     * @param is    The input stream from where to load
+     * @param isXml <tt>true</tt> if we should try to load from xml
+     * @throws IOException if something goes wrong
+     * @since 1.7.1
+     * @see http://java.sun.com/dtd/properties.dtd
+     * @see java.util.Properties#loadFromXML(InputStream)
+     */
+    private void loadProperties(Properties props, InputStream is, boolean isXml) throws IOException {
+        if (isXml) {
+            // load the xml based property definition 
+            // use reflection because of bwc to Java 1.3
+            try {
+                Method loadXmlMethod = props.getClass().getMethod("loadFromXML", new Class[]{InputStream.class});
+                loadXmlMethod.invoke(props, new Object[]{is});
+            } catch (NoSuchMethodException e) {
+                e.printStackTrace();
+                log("Can not load xml based property definition on Java < 5");
+                return;
+            } catch (Exception e) {
+                // no-op
+                e.printStackTrace();
+            }
+        } else {
+            // load ".properties" format
+            props.load(is);
+        }
+    }
+
 
     /**
      * load properties from a file
@@ -525,7 +561,7 @@ public class Property extends Task {
                 FileInputStream  fis = null;
                 try {
                     fis = new FileInputStream(file);
-                    props.load(fis);
+                    loadProperties(props, fis, file.getName().endsWith(".xml"));
                 } finally {
                     if (fis != null) {
                         fis.close();
@@ -565,7 +601,7 @@ public class Property extends Task {
             }
 
             if (is != null) {
-                props.load(is);
+                loadProperties(props, is, name.endsWith(".xml"));
                 addProperties(props);
             } else {
                 log("Unable to find resource " + name, Project.MSG_WARN);
@@ -581,7 +617,6 @@ public class Property extends Task {
                 }
             }
         }
-
     }
 
     /**
diff --git a/src/tests/junit/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/PropertyTest.java b/src/tests/junit/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/PropertyTest.java
index a4f6b5d75..b830f5323 100644
--- a/src/tests/junit/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/PropertyTest.java
+++ b/src/tests/junit/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/PropertyTest.java
@@ -107,5 +107,16 @@ public class PropertyTest extends BuildFileTest {
     public void testThisIsNotACircularReference() {
         expectLog("thisIsNotACircularReference", "b is A/A/A");
     }
+    
+    public void testXmlProperty() {
+        try {
+            Class.forName("java.lang.Iterable");
+            executeTarget("testXmlProperty");
+            assertEquals("ONE", project.getProperty("xml.one"));
+            assertEquals("TWO", project.getProperty("xml.two"));
+        } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
+            // Xml-Loading only on Java5+
+        }
+    }
 
 }