Apache Ant User Manual

Move

Description

Moves a file to a new file or directory, or sets of files to a new directory. By default, the destination file is overwritten if it already exists. When overwrite is turned off, then files are only moved if the source file is newer than the destination file, or when the destination file does not exist.

FileSets are used to select sets of files to move to the todir directory.

Parameters

Attribute	Description	Required
file	the file to move	One of `file` or at least one nested fileset element
tofile	the file to move to	With the `file` attribute, either `tofile` or `todir` can be used. With nested filesets, if the fileset size is greater than 1 or if the only entry in the fileset is a directory or if the `file` attribute is already specified, only `todir` is allowed
todir	the directory to move to
overwrite	overwrite existing files even if the destination files are newer (default is "true")	No
filtering	indicates whether token filtering should take place during the move. See the filter task for a description of how filters work.	No
flatten	ignore directory structure of source directory, copy all files into a single directory, specified by the `todir` attribute (default is "false").Note that you can achieve the same effect by using a flatten mapper	No
includeEmptyDirs	Copy empty directories included with the nested FileSet(s). Defaults to "yes".	No

Parameters specified as nested elements

mapper

You can define file name transformations by using a nested mapper element. The default mapper used by <copy> is the identity.

Examples

Move a single file (rename a file)

  <move file="file.orig" tofile="file.moved"/>

Move a single file to a directory

  <move file="file.orig" todir="dir/to/move/to"/>

Move a directory to a new directory

  <move todir="new/dir/to/move/to">
    <fileset dir="src/dir"/>
  </move>

Move a set of files to a new directory

  <move todir="some/new/dir" >
    <fileset dir="my/src/dir" >
      <include name="**/*.jar"/>
      <exclude name="**/ant.jar"/>
    </fileset>
  </move>

Append ".bak" to the names of all files in a directory.

  <move todir="my/src/dir" >
    <fileset dir="my/src/dir" >
      <exclude name="**/*.bak"/>
    </fileset>
    <mapper type="glob" from="*" to="*.bak"/>
  </move>