Loop through directory structure in ant - ant

Question

We want to loop through directory structure in ant without using foreach .
Is there any elegant way to do the same ?

Answer 1

The apply task can iterate over a set of directories or files
<target name="run-apply">
<apply executable="echo">
<dirset dir="src"/>
</apply>
</target>
I personally like the groovy ANT task
<target name="run-groovy">
<taskdef name="groovy" classname="org.codehaus.groovy.ant.Groovy"/>
<dirset id="dirs" dir="src"/>
<groovy>
project.references.dirs.each {
ant.echo it
}
</groovy>
</target>
The installation of the task jar is easily automated:
<target name="install-groovy">
<mkdir dir="${user.home}/.ant/lib"/>
<get dest="${user.home}/.ant/lib/groovy-all.jar" src="http://search.maven.org/remotecontent?filepath=org/codehaus/groovy/groovy-all/2.1.1/groovy-all-2.1.1.jar"/>
</target>
Finally if you're iterating thru other build files, the subant task is very useful:
<target name="run-subant">
<subant>
<fileset dir="src" includes="**/build.xml"/>
</subant>
</target>

Answer 2

Short answer: Not really. There are ways around this, but I prefer the ant-contrib <for/> task for clarity and simplicity. With the <local/> task, you can now localize values of variables. Before, you sometimes had to use ant-contrib's <var/> task to reset the values, so you could loop through them over and over.
<for param="directory">
<fileset dir="${some.dir}"/>
<sequential>
<local name="foo"/>
<local name="bar"/> <!-- Properties that may change with each iteration -->
<!-- Here be dragons -->
</sequential>
</for>
It's clean, simple, and easy to understand. The big issue many people have with Ant Contrib is that not everyone may have it installed in their $ANT_HOME/lib directory. Far enough. So, if you use ant-contrib, put it as part of your project.
I'll put the ant-contrib jar in ${basedir}/antlib/antcontrib and then put this in my program:
<taskdef resource="net/sf/antcontrib/antlib.xml">
<classpath>
<fileset dir="${basedir}/antlib/antcontrib"/>
</classpath>
</taskdef>
Now, when someone checks out my project, they have ant-contrib already installed (since it's inside my project) and accessible (since I point my <taskdef> task at the location of ant-contrib.jar in my project).