Patterns can be grouped to
sets and later be referenced by their id
attribute. They
are defined via a patternset
element, which can appear
nested into a FileSet or a directory-based
task that constitutes an implicit FileSet. In addition,
patternset
s can be defined as a stand alone element at
the same level as target
i.e., as children of
project
as well as as children of
target
.
Patterns can be specified by nested
<include>
, or <exclude>
elements
or the following attributes.
Attribute | Description |
includes | comma- or space-separated list of patterns of files that must be included. All files are included when omitted. |
includesfile | the name of a file; each line of this file is taken to be an include pattern. You can specify more than one include file by using a nested includesfile elements. Note: if the file is empty and there are no other patterns defined for the fileset, all files will be included. |
excludes | comma- or space-separated list of patterns of files that must be excluded; no files (except default excludes) are excluded when omitted. |
excludesfile | the name of a file; each line of this file is taken to be an exclude pattern. You can specify more than one exclude file by using a nested excludesfile elements. |
include
and exclude
Each such element defines a single pattern for files to include or exclude.
Attribute | Description | Required |
name | the pattern to in/exclude. | Yes |
if | Only use this pattern if the named property is set. | No |
unless | Only use this pattern if the named property is not set. | No |
includesfile
and excludesfile
If you want to list the files to include or exclude external to your build file, you should use the includesfile/excludesfile attributes or elements. Using the attribute, you can only specify a single file of each type, while the nested elements can be specified more than once - the nested elements also support if/unless attributes you can use to test the existence of a property.
Attribute | Description | Required |
name | the name of the file holding the patterns to in/exclude. | Yes |
if | Only read this file if the named property is set. | No |
unless | Only read this file if the named property is not set. | No |
encoding | The encoding of the file. Since Ant 1.9.12 | No, default is platform default |
patternset
Patternsets may be nested within one another, adding the nested patterns to the parent patternset.
invert
A nested patternset can be inverted using the <invert>
element. Since Apache Ant 1.7.1
<patternset id="non.test.sources"> <include name="**/*.java"/> <exclude name="**/*Test*"/> </patternset>
Builds a set of patterns that matches all .java
files
that do not contain the text Test
in their name. This set
can be referred to via
<patternset refid="non.test.sources"/>
,
by tasks that support this feature, or by FileSets.
Note that while the includes
and
excludes
attributes accept
multiple elements separated by commas or spaces, the nested
<include>
and <exclude>
elements expect their name
attribute to hold a single pattern.
The nested elements allow you to use if and unless arguments to specify that the element should only be used if a property is set, or that it should be used only if a property is not set.
For example
<patternset id="sources"> <include name="std/**/*.java"/> <include name="prof/**/*.java" if="professional"/> <exclude name="**/*Test*"/> </patternset>
will only include the files in the sub-directory prof if the property professional is set to some value.
The two sets
<patternset includesfile="some-file"/>
and
<patternset> <includesfile name="some-file"/> <patternset/>
are identical. The include patterns will be read from the file
some-file
, one pattern per line.
<patternset> <includesfile name="some-file"/> <includesfile name="${some-other-file}" if="some-other-file" /> <patternset/>
will also read include patterns from the file the property
some-other-file
points to, if a property of that name has
been defined.