How to copy a directory using Ant

Question

I have used copydir to copy a directory tree but it is deprecated. My directory contains some sub-directories, and some of those contain files and others contain more sub-directories.

How can I copy the entire tree?

Sounds like you want to do a recursive copy. And that's the solution that Omnipresent gave. More people may find this question if the word "recursive" appeared in the question. — Jason, Apr 26 '12 at 18:28

score 129 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 20 '20 at 13:17

129

Copy contents including the directory itself.

<copy todir="${dest.dir}" >  
    <fileset dir="${src.dir.parent}">  
        <include name="${src.dir}/**"/>
    </fileset>
</copy>

Note: ${src.dir} is relative to ${src.dir.parent}, and not a full path

edited Apr 20 '20 at 13:17

MicroVirus

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answered Dec 14 '11 at 17:22

ery

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this should be the CORRECT answer. The other answer are for the question "How do you copy the contents of a directory using Ant". There is a subtle difference. – cmcginty Jan 26 '13 at 00:41
"this should be the CORRECT answer": Absolutely, though the difference is not so subtle when you can't load your resources with the expected pathnames. – Jim Pivarski Jul 10 '13 at 18:48
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it doesn't work for ant 1.8, it seems nothing happened. – CCC Jan 19 '16 at 09:27
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@CCC ensure ${src.dir} is *relative* to ${src.dir.parent}, and not a full path – Mike Demenok Feb 02 '16 at 22:26
very misleading how `x.parent` is supposed to NOT BE the `parent` of `x`... -_- – nonchip May 03 '18 at 13:30
Would be good to include the comment by @MikeDemenok. That worked for me and didn't work until I did that – Zack Macomber Aug 07 '18 at 19:40
hello can you please tell me how to use it – Neetesshhr Aug 19 '22 at 06:18

score 126 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 18 '18 at 23:02

126

<copy todir="${dest.dir}" >  
    <fileset dir="${src.dir}" includes="**"/>  
</copy>

believe that will do what you want... (Recursive copy done)

edited Jan 18 '18 at 23:02

isapir

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answered Nov 06 '09 at 04:42

Omnipresent

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apparently, the `includes` is not necessary when you want everything (see answer by user *s1n*) – Abel Aug 17 '10 at 07:13
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This copies the contents of {src.dir}, but not the actual directory – cmcginty Jan 26 '13 at 00:42
Copies not a did but it's content. – A-Live May 30 '13 at 19:15
Since you are the accepted answer, you might correct it to become the correct answer (ery's answer is correct) ;-) – Christian Fries Sep 08 '13 at 19:42
I gather that the idea of SO is collective curation, which is why anyone can edit someone else's question (though you need a lot of rep to skip the edit review). – Andrew Spencer Oct 10 '13 at 11:23
The accepted answer isn't supposed to be the correct answer but merely the answer that helped OP. Changing the essence of an accepted isn't necessarily a good idea. Answer that receives most points is supposed to be the right answer. – Lindlof May 16 '14 at 13:18

score 26 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 11 '11 at 00:33

26

You should only have to specify the directory (sans the includes property):

<copy todir="../new/dir">
    <fileset dir="src_dir"/>
</copy>

See the manual for more details and examples.

edited Jan 11 '11 at 00:33

martin clayton

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answered Nov 06 '09 at 04:45

s1n

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@s1n This commands only copies all the contents of src_dir to ../new/dir and not the src_dir. How do we copy src_dir (directory) to another location? – Pipalayan Nayak Dec 03 '11 at 19:24

score 17 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 26 '13 at 00:45

17

Copy contents including the directory itself.

<copy todir="${dest.dir}" >  
  <fileset dir="${src.dir.parent}" includes="${src.dir}/**"/>
</copy>

answered Jan 26 '13 at 00:45

cmcginty

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This is the most succinct option. See also http://ant.apache.org/manual/Types/fileset.html. – Jess Apr 09 '14 at 03:29

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 07 '13 at 17:19

A fine point: ant will only copy the sub-directories if the source files are newer than the destination files. [1] In my case, the sub-dirs were not being copied (I am using verbose="true"), since there were no changes and they were already in the destination. You can use "overwrite" to force it, or touch some of the files in your source sub-dirs.

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 21 '16 at 05:12

I used include tags as shown in below code snippet in my build.xml file to copy individul jar files inside a directory.

<target name="devInstall" depends="generateXsl" description="testing">
<copy flatten="true" todir="${test}/WEB-INF/lib" overwrite="${overwrite}">
                <fileset refid="buildJars"/>
                <fileset dir="lib">
                    <include name="commons-collections-*.jar"/>
                    <include name="commons-io-*.jar"/>              
                    <include name="kodo/*.jar"/>
                    <include name="mail*.jar"/>    
                    <include name="activation*.jar"/>               
                    <include name="guava*.jar"/>
                    <include name="jna*.jar"/>                          
                </fileset>          
            </copy>
</target>

score 1 · Answer 7 · edited Jan 11 '11 at 00:32

1

From the example here, you can write a simple Ant file using copy task.

<project name="MyProject" default="copy" basedir=".">
    <target name="copy">
        <copy todir="./new/dir">
           <fileset dir="src_dir"/>
        </copy>
    </target>
</project>

This should copy everything inside src_dir (excluding it) to new/dir.

edited Jan 11 '11 at 00:32

martin clayton

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answered Nov 06 '09 at 04:46

NawaMan

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this is just copying the contents of the directory. not the contents including the directly. :( – ghostCoder Nov 21 '11 at 07:55

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Oct 17 '13 at 19:06

1

I'm adding a more generic pattern to copy all subfolders.

<copy todir="${dest.dir}" >  
  <fileset dir="${src.dir}" includes="**/*"/>
</copy>

See Patterns for details.

answered Oct 17 '13 at 19:06

sartoris

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what should i replace dest.dir and src.dir with. i have nearly 6 directories to be copied to dest dir and make a war file and deply it in tomcat server – deepakl.2000 Aug 11 '22 at 16:48
@deepakl.2000 - note the ${...} construct indicates we're working with an Ant variable you define in your script elsewhere. see https://ant.apache.org/manual/using.html#properties – sartoris Aug 11 '22 at 22:47

Andrei · Answer 9 · 2017-06-19T13:32:26.347

1

Another ant task is Copydir. The key part here is to include the name of the directory you want to copy after the dest directory. The sub-directories and files will be copied automatically.

<target name="-post-jar">
    <copydir src="config" dest="${dist.dir}/config/"/>
</target>

edited Jun 19 '17 at 13:32

answered Jun 05 '17 at 21:11

Andrei

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From your link: **This task has been deprecated. Use the Copy task instead.** – Jim Oct 25 '17 at 19:38

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Jul 18 '13 at 20:18

This code should copy the folder as well as its contents. It also uses the basename task to avoid having to do any manual path parsing.

<project name="Build" default="doCopy">
  <property name="source.dir" value="SourceDirPathGoesHere"/>
  <property name="dest.dir" value="DestinationDirPathGoesHere"/>
  <target name="doCopy">
    <basename property="source.dir.base.name" file="${source.dir}"/>
    <copy todir="${dest.dir}">
      <fileset dir="${source.dir}/.." includes="${source.dir.base.name}/**"/>
    </copy>
  </target>
</project>

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Aug 04 '13 at 09:55

0

I finally copied using following code

<copy todir="${root.dir}/dist/src">  
                <fileset dir="${root.dir}/build/src" includes="**"/>  
            </copy>

This will copy the src folder from dist to build.

Hope this helps someone.

answered Aug 04 '13 at 09:55

Dilip Rajkumar

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it literally says it would copy the other way around though :P – nonchip May 03 '18 at 13:32

How to copy a directory using Ant

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