Ant: The Definitive Guide

Name

delete

Synopsis

Deletes one or more files and directories.

Warning

This is the most dangerous task in Ant. You can very easily erase your entire project with a single tag: <delete dir="."/>.

Attributes

defaultexcludes (all, boolean, N)

Determines whether to use default excludes, as described in Chapter 4 under “FileSet DataType.” Defaults to true.

dir (all, File, *)

The directory to delete, including all its files and subdirectories. Somewhat surprisingly, this attribute has nothing to do with the file attribute or nested <fileset>. Specifically, it does not specify the directory where a file given in the file attribute is found. Instead, this attribute tells the task to “brutally” delete an entire directory tree.

excludes (all, String, N)

A comma-separated list of file patterns to exclude. These are in addition to the default excludes.

excludesfile (all, File, N)

The name of a file containing one exclude pattern per line.

failonerror (1.4, boolean, N)

If true, the build process fails when this task fails. Defaults to true.

file (all, File, *)

The name of a file to delete.

includeemptydirs (1.3, 1.4, boolean, N)

If true, directories are deleted even if they are empty. Relevant only when using nested <fileset>s. Defaults to false.

includes (all, String, N)

A comma-separated list of file patterns to include.

includesfile (all, File, N)

The name of a file containing one include pattern per line.

quiet (1.3, 1.4, boolean, N)

If true, do not fail if a file or directory cannot be deleted. Defaults ...