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>

Ant - Error running javac.exe compiler

Pretty green to Ant here. I've been running into a problem of trying to get a .jar file to compile in my script (specifically the rt.jar). I've tried two different ways to fix this (most of which has been found on this site).
Here is how I am setting my path:
<path id="build.class.path">
<fileset dir="${jboss.home}">
<include name="**/*.jar"/>
</fileset>
<fileset dir="${jre.dir}">
<include name="**/*.jar"/>
</fileset>
<fileset dir="${lib.dir}">
<include name="**/*.jar" />
</fileset>
</path>
However, when I try to compile my files with javac using the fork attribute:
<javac fork="true" includeantruntime="true" debug="on" srcdir="${src.dir}" destdir="${temp.dir.classes}" includes="**/*">
<classpath refid="build.class.path" />
</javac>
I get the following error:
Alternatively, I tried running without the fork attribute and get this error:
Now I know that the file that is not being found is in the rt.jar. But it doesn't seem to want to pick it up. I've double checked all of my enviroment variables constantly; even making sure that my JAVA_HOME one isn't pointing to the jre.
Hopefully, I'm just making a newbie mistake but any help would be greatly appreciated.
EDIT:
I've been playing around and got older verisons of the JDK and Jboss (both ver 7 now). Now my error is this:
This is now happening with and without fork.

Confusion with ant regex at the time of filename selector

I am trying to select all jars from the current directory. I am getting confused between:
**/*.jar
*.jar
I assumed *.jar will work the same as **/*.jar. However the following examples are working differently:
<path id="master-classpath-common-lib" >
<fileset dir=".">
<include name="**/*.jar"/>
</fileset>
</path>
<path id="master-classpath-common-lib" >
<fileset dir=".">
<include name="*.jar"/>
</fileset>
</path>
For this case *.jar is not working at all.
Can anyone please give some hint on this.

*.jar means all the .jar files in only within the base directory, the directory specified in <fileset dir="${master.classpath}/lib">. This will not include the files in the subdirectories.
In **/*.jar, ** (used as the directory name) is a special feature, that means all the (nested) subdirectories.
Check out an example with explanation here.

When are Ant path references set?

When I use a path reference ID, Ant seems to evaluate any variables inside the definition before any tasks run. For example, ${common.dist} and ${common.lib} below seem to be evaluated before any tasks run.
<path id="compile.classpath">
<fileset dir="lib">
<include name="*.jar" />
</fileset>
<fileset dir="${common.dist}">
<include name="*.jar" />
</fileset>
<fileset dir="${common.lib}">
<include name="*.jar" />
</fileset>
</path>
In the Ant output I see something like this:
Adding reference: compile.classpath
Property "common.dist" has not been set
Property "common.lib" has not been set
...
Build sequence for target(s) `package' is [...]
Complete build sequence is [...]
This makes it seem like the path reference is being processed before any targets are run.
I have a compile target like this:
<target name="compile" depends="init,common">
<javac destdir="build/classes" debug="true" deprecation="true" optimize="true">
<src path="src/java" />
<classpath>
<path refid="compile.classpath" />
</classpath>
</javac>
</target>
If I copy the guts of the path reference into the classpath element inside the compile target, things seem to work fine.

Any tasks outside a target are executed on every build, in order of appearance in the build.xml, before any targets are run. If you want to use properties in a <path> defined outside a target then you need to put the <property> task that defines the properties also outside a target, and before the <path>. If you need to load the properties within a target then you'll have to put the <path> definition inside a target too (either the same one or one that runs after the one defining the properties).
See this question (and my answer) for more details.

The answer is in the Ant manual - path like structures:
By default a path like structure will re-evaluate all nested resource
collections whenever it is used, which may lead to unnecessary
re-scanning of the filesystem ...
I think you maybe forgot to set the ${common.dist} and ${common.lib} properties. They should be outside any target:
<property name="common.dist" location="dist"/>
<property name="common.lib" location="lib"/>

How can I exclude sources in a javac task in ant?

I have the following in my build.xml:
<target name="compile.baz" depends="init">
<javac destdir="${build.dir}/classes" debug="on">
<compilerarg value="-Xlint:deprecation"/>
<src>
<pathelement location="${src.dir}/com/foo/bar/baz/" />
<pathelement location="${src.dir}/com/foo/bar/quux/" />
<!-- Need to exclude ${src.dir}/com/foo/bar/quux/dontwant/ -->
</src>
<classpath refid="classpath.jars" />
</javac>
...
</target>
This mostly does what I want, except that (as the comment says) I do not want the files in
${src.dir}/com/foo/bar/quux/dontwant/ to be compiled by this task (but I do want everything else under ${src.dir}/com/foo/bar/quux/ to be compiled in this task).
I'm a complete ant n00b, and the documentation hasn't been much help to me. I see several places where it says there are various exclude/excludes elements/attributes, but every variation I can think of either has no effect or results in an error like "blah doesn't support the 'exclude' attribute".

A couple of people suggested using <exclude>. This didn't work with the way my task was specified. trashgod's answer linked to the sixth example on this page which gave me an idea of how to restructure my task specification.
It looks like my problem was related to the way I was specifying the source files. Rather than using <pathelement> elements in a <src>, like this:
<src>
<pathelement location="${src.dir}/com/foo/bar/baz/" />
<pathelement location="${src.dir}/com/foo/bar/quux/" />
</src>
I switched to using a single <src> with a path and then a set of <include> elements, like this:
<src path="${src.dir}" />
<include name="com/foo/bar/baz/**" />
<include name="com/foo/bar/quux/**" />
This appears to be functionally identical, but is compatible with the use of <exclude>:
<exclude name="${src.dir}/com/foo/bar/quux/dontwant/**"/>
(Actually, I'm surprised that what was there in the first place worked at all.)

From my experiments you should not include full path for file you want to exclude.
This one doesn't work:
<javac>
(...>
<exclude name="${src.dir}/com/foo/blah/blah1/FILENAME.java"/>
(...)
</javac>
but this one does:
<javac>
(...>
<exclude name="com/foo/blah/blah1/FILENAME.java"/>
(...)
</javac>

Try
<javac>
(...>
<exclude name="${src.dir}/com/foo/bar/quux/dontwant/*" />
(...)
</javac>

I'm not sure about the rest, but the <exclude/> nested element should work in the Javac task. See the sixth example down.
Addendum: Patterns, including the ** notation, are discussed in Directory-based Tasks.
<target name="compile.baz" depends="init">
<javac destdir="${build.dir}/classes" debug="on">
<compilerarg value="-Xlint:deprecation"/>
<src>
<pathelement location="${src.dir}/com/foo/bar/baz/" />
<pathelement location="${src.dir}/com/foo/bar/quux/" />
</src>
<exclude name="${src.dir}/com/foo/bar/quux/dontwant/**"/>
...
</javac>
...
</target>

If you are trying to exclude Java classes but Ant is still trying to compile them then this may be due to references to these classes in your code.
If A.java has a reference to B.java and you try to exclude B.java then compiling A.java will require that B.java is compiled too.
This is one reason for interfaces in Java, so you can compile the interface without needing to compile the implementations.

try
folder "test" under {source.dir} would not be complied
<javac destdir="${compile.dir}" ...>
<src path="${source.dir}" />
<exclude name="test/**"/>
</javac>