diff --git a/LICENSE b/LICENSE.txt
similarity index 100%
rename from LICENSE
rename to LICENSE.txt
diff --git a/METADATA-VERSION.php b/METADATA-VERSION.php
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..6bd06fc82
--- /dev/null
+++ b/METADATA-VERSION.php
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+<?php
+/**
+ * This file specifies the revision of the metadata to build from.
+ * It can be a commit, branch or tag of the https://github.com/google/libphonenumber project
+ * For more information, look at the phing tasks in build.xml
+ * @internal
+ */
+return 'v8.13.35';
diff --git a/METADATA-VERSION.txt b/METADATA-VERSION.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index d71a38001..000000000
--- a/METADATA-VERSION.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,5 +0,0 @@
-# This file specifies the revision of the metadata to build from
-# It can be a commit, branch or tag of the https://github.com/google/libphonenumber project
-#
-# For more information, look at the phing tasks in build.xml
-v8.13.35
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 37e24ca3a..84cdf6d4e 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -143,4 +143,4 @@ If you do need to generate the data, the commands are provided by [Phing](https:
 $ vendor/bin/phing compile
 ```
 
-This compile process clones the [libphonenumber](https://github.com/google/libphonenumber) project at the version specified in [METADATA-VERSION.txt](METADATA-VERSION.txt).
+This compile task clones the [libphonenumber](https://github.com/google/libphonenumber) project at the version specified in [METADATA-VERSION.php](METADATA-VERSION.php).
diff --git a/build.xml b/build.xml
index 64a905d4e..8aa8012c3 100644
--- a/build.xml
+++ b/build.xml
@@ -6,15 +6,7 @@
     <property name="git.url" value="https://github.com/google/libphonenumber.git"/>
     <property name="git.path" value="libphonenumber-data-dir"/>
 
-    <loadfile property="metadata.version" file="METADATA-VERSION.txt">
-        <filterchain>
-            <striplinecomments>
-                <comment value="#" />
-            </striplinecomments>
-            <striplinebreaks />
-        </filterchain>
-    </loadfile>
-
+    <php returnProperty="metadata.version" expression="require 'METADATA-VERSION.php';" />
     <property name="data.testCoreData" value="tests/core/data/"/>
     <property name="data.coreData" value="src/data/"/>