Apache Ant User Manual

Apply/ExecOn

The name execon is deprecated and only kept for backwards compatibilty.

Description

Executes a system command. When the os attribute is specified, then the command is only executed when Ant is run on one of the specified operating systems.

The files and/or directories of a number of FileSets are passed as arguments to the system command.

If you specify a nested mapper and the destdir attribute, the timestamp of each source file is compared to the timestamp of a target file which is defined by the nested mapper element and searched for in the given destdir.

At least one fileset is required, you must not specify more than one mapper.

Parameters

Attribute	Description	Required
executable	the command to execute without any command line arguments.	Yes
dest	the directory where the <apply> expects the target files will be placed by the command, when it is executed.	Yes, if you specify a nested mapper
dir	the directory in which the command should be executed.	No
relative	whether the filenames should be passed on the command line as absolute or relative pathnames (relative to the base directory of the corresponding fileset for source files or the dest attribute for target files).	No, default is false
os	list of Operating Systems on which the command may be executed.	No
output	the file to which the output of the command should be redirected.	No
outputproperty	the name of a property in which the output of the command should be stored.	No
timeout	Stop the command if it doesn't finish within the specified time (given in milliseconds).	No
failonerror	Stop the buildprocess if the command exits with a returncode other than 0.	No
skipemptyfilesets	Don't run the command, if no source files have been found or are newer than their corresponding target files.	No, default is false
parallel	Run the command only once, appending all files as arguments. If false, command will be executed once for every file. Defaults to false.	No
type	One of file, dir or both. If set to file, only the names of plain files will be sent to the command. If set to dir, only the names of directories are considered.	No, default is file
newenvironment	Do not propagate old environment when new environment variables are specified.	No, default is false
vmlauncher	Run command using the Java VM's execution facilities where available. If set to false the underlying OS's shell, either directly or through the antRun scripts, will be used. Under some operating systems, this gives access to facilities not normally available through the VM including, under Windows, being able to execute scripts, rather than their associated interpreter.	No, default is true

Parameters specified as nested elements

fileset

You can use any number of nested <fileset> elements to define the files for this task and refer to <fileset>s defined elsewhere.

arg

Command line arguments should be specified as nested <arg> elements. See Command line arguments.

srcfile

By default the file names of the source files will be added to the end of the command line. If you need to place it somewhere different, use a nested <srcfile> element between your <arg> elements to mark the insertion point.

targetfile

<targetfile> is similar to <srcfile> and marks the position of the target filename on the command line. If omitted, the target filenames will not be added to the command line at all. This element can only be specified, if you also define a nested mapper and the destdir attribute.

env

It is possible to specify environment variables to pass to the system command via nested <env> elements. See the description in the section about exec

Please note that the environment of the current Ant process is not passed to the system command if you specify variables using <env>.

Examples

<apply executable="ls" >
  <arg value="-l"/>
  <fileset dir="/tmp">
    <patternset>
      <exclude name="**/*.txt"/>
    </patternset>
  </fileset>
  <fileset refid="other.files"/>
</apply>

invokes ls -l, adding the absolute filenames of all files below /tmp not ending in .txt and all files of the FileSet with id other.files to the command line.

<apply executable="somecommand" parallel="false" >
  <arg value="arg1"/>
  <srcfile/>
  <arg value="arg2"/>
  <fileset dir="/tmp"/>
</apply>

invokes somecommand arg1 SOURCEFILENAME arg2 for each file in /tmp replacing SOURCEFILENAME with the absolute filename of each file in turn. If parallel had been set to true, SOURCEFILENAME would be replaced with the absolute filenames of all files separated by spaces.

<apply executable="cc" dest="src/C" parallel="false">
  <arg value="-c"/>
  <arg value="-o"/>
  <targetfile/>
  <srcfile/>
  <fileset dir="src/C" includes="*.c"/>
  <mapper type="glob" from="*.c" to="*.o"/>
</apply>

invokes cc -c -o TARGETFILE SOURCEFILE for each .c file that is newer than the corresponding .o, replacing TARGETFILE with the absolute filename of the .o and SOURCEFILE with the absolute name of the .c file.