diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/ReplaceRegExp.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/ReplaceRegExp.java
index f0b4bbaa7..7b91152f7 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/ReplaceRegExp.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/taskdefs/optional/ReplaceRegExp.java
@@ -242,6 +242,7 @@ public class ReplaceRegExp extends Task {
      * want to only replace the first occurrence of a regular expression on
      * each line, which is not easy to do when processing the file as a whole.
      * Defaults to <i>false</i>.</td>
+     * @deprecated - use setByLine(boolean)
      */
     public void setByLine(String byline) {
         Boolean res = Boolean.valueOf(byline);
@@ -252,6 +253,17 @@ public class ReplaceRegExp extends Task {
         this.byline = res.booleanValue();
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Process the file(s) one line at a time, executing the replacement
+     * on one line at a time.  This is useful if you
+     * want to only replace the first occurrence of a regular expression on
+     * each line, which is not easy to do when processing the file as a whole.
+     * Defaults to <i>false</i>.</td>
+     */
+    public void setByLine(boolean byline) {
+        this.byline = byline;
+    }
+
 
     /**
      * Specifies the encoding Ant expects the files to be in -