Develop Reference

ANT unzip every jar except one

I have an ANT target that unzips every jar with a "for" task, but I want to exclude a specific jar called Neo.jar. This is what I have so far, but it is unzipping every single jar that is available to it.
<target name="unzipjars">
<for param="jar">
<sequential>
<unzip dest="${expanded.dirs}" src="#{jar}">
<exclude name="Neo.jar/**"/>
</unzip>
</sequential>
</for>
</target>
I was looking at trying to exclude something from "for param="jar"" but I don't think anything like that exists. The "exclude name" for Neo.jar doesn't seem to work because I believe it doesn't think it is a directory because it is a jar

As you can see here, it's quietly easy.
All you need is to add the tag patternset to your configuration (and you don't need to iterate by the way...). Like this:
<target name="unzipjars">
<unzip dest="${expanded.dirs}">
<patternset>
<exclude name="**/Neo.jar"/>
</patternset>
<fileset dir="${jar}">
<include name="**/*.*"/>
</fileset>
</unzip>
</target>

You can use the if task (http://ant-contrib.sourceforge.net/tasks/tasks/if.html) to filter out the Neo.jar file. For example
<for param="jar">
<sequential>
<if>
<not><equals arg1="#{jar}" arg2="Neo.jar" /></not>
<then><!-- unzip the jar --></then>
</if>
</sequential>
</for>

Does Ant guarantee order of filesets?

in our project we use Ant to distribute files. There is hierarchy of files, and they overwrite files from previous level. Like this: default - level1 - level2. Currently it is made the way:
<copy todir="...">
<fileset dir="${root}/default" includes="**/*" excludes="file1" />
<fileset dir="${root}/level1" includes="**/*" />
<fileset dir="${root}/level2" includes="**/*" excludes="file2"/>
</copy>
So we expected that all the folders contain file with the same name, it will be taken from level2 directory.
Not long ago we moved to a new build box with another version of Java and we discovered that the order of filesets is broken.
Is there a way to fix this issue without modifying ant config files? We have a big number of it. If there is no way, how can I got it off cheap? Thank you.

I don't know if the order of filesets is quaranteed, but the order of copy tasks is.
So, following the suggestion of this answer, it might be a good idea to write several copy tasks with overwrite="true":
<copy todir="...">
<fileset dir="${root}/default" includes="**/*" excludes="file1" />
</copy>
<copy todir="...">
<fileset dir="${root}/level1" includes="**/*" overwrite="true" />
</copy>
<copy todir="...">
<fileset dir="${root}/level2" includes="**/*" excludes="file2" overwrite="true" />
</copy>

You can wrap a sort resource collection around your filesets and ensure the order used by copy this way. Sort itself only likes a single resource collection as child element, so you need to wrap the fileset inside a union or resources container.
See http://ant.apache.org/manual/Types/resources.html#sort
Something like
<sort>
<resources>
<fileset dir="${root}/default" includes="**/*" excludes="file1" />
<fileset dir="${root}/level1" includes="**/*" />
<fileset dir="${root}/level2" includes="**/*" excludes="file2"/>
</resources>
<name/>
</sort>
to sort the files by name.

how to copy a directory in ant

Say I have directory structure like this:
base_dir1/src_dir
base_dir2/dest_dir
How do I copy src_dir(folder + contents) into dest_dir.
If I use copy task like this:
<copy todir="base_dir2/dest_dir">
<fileset dir="base_dir1/src_dir"/>
</copy>
It will copy all the contents of src_dir into dest_dir, but will not create a src_dir folder inside dest_dir.
I can make it work by using the copy task like this:
<copy todir="base_dir2/dest_dir">
<fileset dir="base_dir1">
<include name="src_dir/"/>
</fileset>
</copy>
Is this the correct way or is there a better way to do it?

Alternately, you could do this.
<copy todir="base_dir2/dest_dir/src_dir">
<fileset dir="base_dir1/src_dir"/>
</copy>
The folder (or part of the folder) specified by todir need not exist.
<fileset> refers to contents of the specified folder (excluding it).

Ant copy classpath jars to a directory

I'm sure this has either been asked before or is pretty straightforward. But for whatever reason, I cannot seem to make it work. I want to use ant to copy the ${build.classpath} (which contains a colon separated list of jars) to the ${output.dir}/myapp/WEB-INF/lib.
I have this right now and it doesn't seem to work:
<copy toDir="${output.dir}/myapp/WEB-INF/lib">
<fileset file="${build.classpath}" />
</copy>
It treats the whole classpath as one file. How do I get this to work?

The Ant Manual on the copy task contains the answer for your problem. One of the example snippets it provides:
Collect all items from the current CLASSPATH setting into a destination directory, flattening the directory structure.
<copy todir="dest" flatten="true">
<path>
<pathelement path="${java.class.path}"/>
</path>
</copy>

I think somethink like this should work:
<copy todir="${output.dir}/myapp/WEB-INF/lib" verbose="yes" flatten="yes" failonerror="no">
<fileset dir="${build.classpath}">
<include name="*.jar" />
</fileset>
</copy>
or with wildcard in include: <include name="**/*.jar" />

I think you should put all your colon separated jar files to one root folder. If it is not possible then create a separate task that put those jar files into one folder(may be temporary). And assign ${build.classpath} to that folder. Use <fileset dir="${build.classpath}"/> in your copy clause.
I hope, it should help.

Linked folder not resolved by Ant in eclipse

In my build.xml, below works fine :-
<path id="build.classpath">
<fileset dir="lib [myUtils]" includes="*.jar" />
</path>
if lib [myUtils] is of folder type, but don't works, if it's of Linked Folder type.
Also, I found this when googled :-
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=265960
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=43081
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=265960
Is there any trick to achieve this, without copying the dependencies in work folder??

Note that ant should work outside of eclipse as well. So you can't reply in IDE abstractions. You can use symbolic links (if your OS supports them).
If not, you can use the FileSync plugin to synchronize eclipse project folders with external folders. Or you can simply use the <copy> ant task.

I resolved this using copy task:
<copy todir="target/web/linked1">
<fileset dir="../linkdProject/source1" />
</copy>
<copy todir="target/web/linked2">
<fileset dir="../linkedProject/source2" />
</copy>
....
<war destfile="target/webApp.war">
<fileset dir="WebContent" />
<fileset dir="target/web" /> <!-- copy linked resources -->
...
</war>
<delete dir="target"/>