Feature request: If possible, provide a timestamp, i.e., formatted Date/Time stamp in phing built in properties for display in <echo> task. This will provide a checkpoint for an appended log file that you can use when you run phing from CRON and >> log.txt.
For instance, add phing.startTime formatted as standard date/time format in current locale so you can <echo msg="Phing started at ${phing.startTime}" />
I don't really need xinc or cc so I run my nightly phing build from cron and redirect the output to a log file instead of picking up the *nix mail. Using >>, I append each cron run to the log file and examine it periodically.
Thanks for considering this!