How to specify files matching *~? - ant

I have the following ant target:
<delete>
<fileset dir="${qnaire_dir}" includes="**/*~" />
</delete>
It does not delete the following files:
./DETAILS~
./qnaire/__init__.py~
./qtest.py~
./README~
What is the correct includes value to match these files?

I found the answer! The syntax I was looking for:
<defaultexcludes remove="**/*~" />
<delete>
<fileset dir="${qnaire_dir}" includes="**/*~" />
</delete>
<defaultexcludes default="true" />
After skimming the ant documentation for the delete task (http://ant.apache.org/manual/Tasks/delete.html) half a dozen times, I finally actually noticed this statement:
If you use this task to delete temporary files created by editors and it doesn't seem to work, read
up on the default exclusion set in Directory-based Tasks, and see the defaultexcludes attribute
below.
So I went and read about defaultexludes. Turns out that by default ant excludes a set of file expressions from all directory based tasks. These are listed here: http://ant.apache.org/manual/dirtasks.html#defaultexcludes
Adding the first defaultexludes element and removing '*~' from the list allows the subsequent delete task to do the right thing. The second defaultexcludes element puts the default exclusion list back in place.

if you need the regex this matches everything with a ~
.*\~

Related

Using Apache Ant to Delete All But Most Recent 3 Directories

I have a scenario in which there is an "archive" directory that contains various subdirectories. I only want to keep the most recent three subdirectories. So, for example I have:
archive/
subA/ [created 1-May-2018]
subB/ [created 2-May-2018]
subC/ [created 3-May-2018]
subD/ [created 4-May-2018]
subE/ [created 5-May-2018]
In other words, I want to be able to select subA and subB (on the basis of their filesystem dates) and delete them -- including all files and subdirectories within them. I can easily do a Python script that does this, but would prefer a pure-Ant solution.
Based on another StackOverflow question (How to delete all but latest 2 files using Ant), I have tried:
<resources id="deleteDirs">
<allbutlast count="3" >
<sort>
<date />
<resources>
<dirset dir="${dir.archive}" includes="*" />
</resources>
</sort>
</allbutlast>
</resources>
<echo message="Delete directories: ${toString:deleteDirs}" />
<delete verbose="true">
<resources refid="deleteDirs" />
</delete>
However this and any other variations I have come up with do not work. Note, however, that the deleteDirs refid when printed out does show what I want selected, but the delete task quietly ignores it.
In briefly examining the source for the delete task, there are comments to the effect that the delete was at some point refactored to also perform the deprecated deltree task (which apparently cannot wrap around a resource, dirset, or path). So, I am guessing that when deltree was brought into delete it still only works with the form:
<delete dir="DIRNAME"/>
and not when wrapping a resource collection.
Is there a pure Ant way to essentially do:
<deltree dir="${dir.archive}/subA" />
<deltree dir="${dir.archive}/subB" />
However, without hard-coding my selection(s) in deltree tasks and allowing Ant to select all but the most recent three directories based on date.
I got stuck on the same problem. I am shocked that this problem is not solved for long. Apparently task does not work with resource collection of type . The only solution to the problem I could figure out is to use ant-contrib and do the follwing:
<for param="folder">
<path>
<allbutlast count="${to.keep.count}">
<sort>
<dirset dir="${dir.archive}" includes="*"/>
</sort>
</allbutlast>
</path>
<sequential>
<delete dir="#{folder}"/>
</sequential>
</for>
If anybody can suggest a solution without using Ant-Contrib, I will be (and I believe not only me) very very grateful.
Of course the perfect solution would be to make this work as follows:
<delete verbose="true">
<allbutlast count="${to.keep.count}">
<sort>
<dirset dir="${dir.archive}" includes="*"/>
</sort>
</allbutlast>
</delete>
but unfortunately this does not work.

How to load a list of files as resources in an Ant task?

I've looked all over the net as to how I can load a list of files that contain spaces and don't yet exist with an Ant task.
I have a file that contains one file path per line, like so:
dir1/dir2/dir with spaces/file1.js
dir1/dir2/dir with spaces/dir3/file2.js
dir1/file1.js
Since the paths have spaces I cannot use:
<filelist files="..." />
The files also don't exist yet, so it seems like I can't use
<fileset>
<includesfile name="..." />
</fileset>
Any ideas would be greatly appreaciated.
You can use a resourcelist for this. For example, if your list of files are in a file called 'files.txt':
<resourcelist id="files">
<file file="files.txt"/>
</resourcelist>
<touch mkdirs="true">
<resources refid="files" />
</touch>
For me this yields:
[touch] Creating .../filelist/dir1/dir2/dir with spaces/file1.js
[touch] Creating .../filelist/dir1/dir2/dir with spaces/dir3/file2.js
[touch] Creating .../filelist/dir1/file1.js
The reason this works is that a <resourcelist> treats each line in the file read as a separate resource, so line separators rather than commas or spaces divide the items.

ANT: How to read property setted in a foreach loop

Dear, I currently face some problem to retrieve the value of a property setted in a foreach loop. Maybe one of you could help me...
The purpose is to check if one file of a folder has been modified since the corresponding jar has been generated. This way I know if I have to generate the jar again.
What I do is to go through the folder with a foreach loop and if one file match my test, set a property to true.
The problem is that my variable doesn't seems to exist after my loop... Here is a simplified code example that has the same problem:
<target name="target">
<taskdef resource="net/sf/antcontrib/antlib.xml" classpath="${lib.dir}/ant-contrib.jar"></taskdef>
<foreach target="setVar" param="var" list="a,b"/>
<echo>myreturn in target: ${env.myreturn}</echo>
<property name="env.myreturn" value="c"/>
<echo>myreturn in second: ${env.myreturn}</echo>
</target>
<target name="setVar">
<property name="env.myreturn" value="${var}"/>
<echo>myreturn in setVar: ${env.myreturn}</echo>
</target>
The result of this code is:
target:
setVar:
[echo] myreturn in setVar: a
setVar:
[echo] myreturn in setVar: b
[echo] myreturn in target: ${env.myreturn}
[echo] myreturn in second: c
BUILD SUCCESSFUL
It seems that the variable is correctly set as it could be printed in the "setVar" target but no way to retrieve value from the calling target.
I also know it's not possible to assign a value to a property twice. But the problem doesn't even occurs... When it'll be the case I could add a check on the value of the property before to assign it to be sure it is not already initialized...
Do you have a clue on the way I can solve my problem ???
Many thanks in advance for your help :)
Try <for> task from ant-contrib instead of <foreach>. The <for> task takes advantage of Ant macro facility that came later. It works faster and is more flexible than the older <foreach> task. You are in the same project context when using <for>. That means properties set in the loop will be visible outside of the loop. Of course, normal rules for properties apply... you only get to set it once... unless you use <var> task from ant-contrib to overwrite or unset previously set properties.
Ah the joys of Ant hacking.
Not sure about your foreach problem, but can you not use the uptodate task for your requirement?
Even if I don't need it anymore thanks to sudocode, I found a solution for my question. Maybe it could be useful for someone else...
A collegue talked about the "antcallback" target of ant-contrib: it allows to return a result from a called target to the calling one. With a combination of "for" target and "antcallback" it is possible to do what I wanted to do:
<target name="target">
<taskdef resource="net/sf/antcontrib/antlib.xml" classpath="${lib.dir}/ant-contrib.jar"></taskdef>
<for param="file">
<path>
<fileset dir="../myDirectory" includes="**/*" />
</path>
<sequential>
<antcallback target="setVar" return="retValue">
<param name="file" value="#{file}"/>
</antcallback>
</sequential>
</for>
<echo>result: ${retValue}</echo>
</target>
<target name="setVar">
<property name="retValue" value="${file}"/>
</target>
"file" contains the name of the file in the directory. It is given to the called target as parameter with value "#{file}" ('#' necessary due to "for" target implementation).
At the end of the main target, ${retValue} contains the first value setted by the "setVar" target. No error is thrown when trying to set it multiple times, so it's not necessary to check if variable has already been instantiated before to set it in "setVar" target.
The <foreach> task uses the same logic as <antcall> under the covers, and any proprrties set inside a target invoked by <antcall> do not have scope beyond the execution of that target.
In other words, the env.myreturn property that you define in the setVar target is lost as soon as execution of that target completes.
This sort of scripting really isn't what Ant is designed for. The Ant-contrib library tries to patch up the holes, but it's still bending it way out of shape.
If you need to write such scripts, and want to use Ant tasks to achieve them, have a look at Gradle instead. It's a rather lovely blend of Groovy (for scripting) and Ant (for the tasks).
The other approaches here (<for>, <var>, <groovy>properties.put(....)</groovy>, <property>, <antcallback>) did not work with ANT 1.9.4, so I used the file system similar to this (pseudocode):
<target name="outer">
<for> <antcall target="inner" /> </for>
<loadproperties srcfile="tmpfile.properties" />
<echo message="${outerprop}" />
</target>
<target name="inner">
<!-- did not work: -->
<!--
<property name="outerprop" value="true" />
<var name="outerprop" value="true" />
<groovy>properties.put('outerprop','true')</groovy>
<antcallback target="setouterprop" />
-->
<echo message="outerprop=true" file="tmpfile.properties" />
</target>
Maybe the other approaches did not work because of my <antcall>, but I need it here. (outerprop is initially unset)

Can I send Ant 'replace' task output to a new file?

The Ant replace task does an in-place replacement without creating a new file.
The below snippet replaces tokens in any of the '*.xml' files with the corresponding values from the 'my.properties' file.
<replace dir="${projects.prj.dir}/config"
replacefilterfile="${projects.prj.dir}/my.properties"
includes="*.xml" summary="true" />
I want those files that had their tokens replaced to be created named after a pattern (e.g.) '*.xml.filtered', and keep the original files.
Is this possible in Ant with some smart combination of tasks?
There are a couple of ways to get close to what you want without copying to a temporary directory and copying back.
Filtersets
If the source files can be changed so that the parts to be replaced can be delimited with begin and end tokens, as in #date# (# is the default token, but it can be changed) then you can use the copy task with a globmapper and a filterset:
<copy todir="config">
<fileset dir="config" includes="*.xml" />
<globmapper from="*.xml" to="*.xml.filtered" />
<filterset filtersfile="replace.properties" />
</copy>
If replace.properties contains FOO = bar, then any occurrence of #FOO# in a source xml file file be replaced with bar in the target.
Note that the source and target directories are the same, the globmapper means the target files and named with the suffix .filtered. It's possible (and more usual) to copy files into a different target directory)
Filterchains
If the source file can't be changed to add begin and end tokens, a possible alternative would be to use a filterchain with one or more replacestring filters instead of the filterset:
<copy todir="config">
<fileset dir="config" includes="*.xml" />
<globmapper from="*.xml" to="*.xml.filtered" />
<filterchain>
<tokenfilter>
<replacestring from="foo" to="bar" />
<!-- extra replacestring elements here as required -->
</tokenfilter>
</filterchain>
</copy>
This will replace any occurrence of foo with bar, anywhere in the file, which is more like the behaviour of the replace task. Unfortunately this way means you need to include all your replacements in the build file itself, you can't have them in a separate properties file.
In both cases the copy task will only copy source files that are newer than the target files, so unnecessary work won't be done.
Copy then replace
A third possibility (that has just occured to me whilst writing up the other two) would be to perform the copy first to the renamed files, then run the replace task specifying the renamed files:
<copy todir="config">
<fileset dir="config" includes="*.xml" />
<globmapper from="*.xml" to="*.xml.filtered" />
</copy>
<replace dir="config" replacefilterfile="replace.properties" summary="true"
includes="*.xml.filtered" />
This might be the closest solution to the original requirement. The downside is that the replace task will be run each time on the renamed files. This could be a problem for some replacement patterns (admittedly they would be odd ones like foo=foofoo, but they would be okay with the first two methods) and you will be doing unnecessary work when the dependencies don't change.
The replace task doesn't observe dependencies, instead it carries out the replacement by writing a temporary file for each input file. If the temporary file is the same as the input file, it is discarded. A temporary file that differs from the input file is renamed to replace that input. This means all the files are processed, even if none of them need be - hence it can be inefficient.
The original solution to this question was to carry out a copy-replace-copy. The second copy isn't needed though, as a mapper can be used in the first. In the copy, dependencies can be used to restrict processing to just the files that have changed - by means of a depend selector in an explicit fileset:
<copy todir="${projects.prj.dir}">
<fileset dir="${projects.prj.dir}">
<include name="*.xml" />
<depend targetdir="${projects.prj.dir}">
<mapper type="glob" from="*.xml" to="*.xml.filtered" />
</depend>
</fileset>
<mapper type="glob" from="*.xml" to="*.xml.filtered" />
</copy>
That will restrict the copy fileset to just those files that have changed. An alternative syntax for the mappers is:
<globmapper from="*.xml" to="*.xml.filtered" />
The simplest replace would then be:
<replace dir="${projects.prj.dir}"
replacefilterfile="my.properties"
includes="*.xml.filtered" />
That will still process all the files though, even if none of them need undergo replacements. The replace task has an implicit fileset and can operate on an explicit fileset, but unlike similar tasks the implicit fileset is not optional, hence to take advantage of selectors in an explicit fileset you must make the implicit one 'do nothing' - hence the .dummy file here:
<replace dir="${projects.prj.dir}"
replacefilterfile="my.properties">
includes=".dummy" />
<fileset dir="${projects.prj.dir}" includes="*.xml.filtered">
<not>
<different targetdir="${projects.prj.dir}">
<globmapper from="*.xml.filtered" to="*.xml" />
</different>
</not>
</fileset>
</replace>
That will prevent the replace task from needlessly processing files that have previously undergone substitution. It doesn't, however, prevent processing of files that haven't changed and don't need substitution.
Beyond that, I'm not sure there is a way to 'code golf' this problem to reduce the number of steps to one.
There isn't a multiple string replacement filter that can be used in a copy task to achieve the same affect as replace, which is a shame because that feels like it would be the right solution.
One other approach would be to generate the xml for a series of replace string filters and then have Ant execute that. But that will be more complex than the existing solution, and prone to problems with replacement strings that, if pasted into an xml fragment will result in something that can't be parsed.
Yet another approach would be to write a custom task or script task to do the work. If there are many files and the copy-replace solution is judged to be too slow, then this might be the way to go. But again, that approach is less simple than the existing solution.
If the requirement is to minimise the work done in the processing, rather than to come up with the shortest Ant solution, then this approach might do.
Make a fileset containing a list of inputs that have changed.
From that fileset create a comma-separated list of corresponding filtered files.
Carry out the copy on the fileset.
Carry out the replace on the comma-separated list.
A wrinkle here is that the implicit fileset in the replace task will fall back to processing everything if no files have changed. To overcome this we insert a dummy file name.
<fileset id="changed" dir="${projects.prj.dir}" includes="*.xml">
<depend targetdir="${projects.prj.dir}">
<globmapper from="*.xml" to="*.xml.filtered" />
</depend>
</fileset>
<pathconvert property="replace.includes" refid="changed">
<map from=".xml" to=".xml.filtered" />
</pathconvert>
<copy todir="${projects.prj.dir}" preservelastmodified="true">
<fileset refid="changed" />
<globmapper from="*.xml" to="*.xml.filtered" />
</copy>
<replace dir="${projects.prj.dir}"
replacefilterfile="my.properties"
includes=".dummy,${replace.includes}" summary="true" />

Text manipulation in ant

Given an ant fileset, I need to perform some sed-like manipulations on it, condense it to a multi-line string (with effectively one line per file), and output the result to a text file.
What ant task am I looking for?
The Ant script task allows you to implement a task in a scripting language. If you have JDK 1.6 installed, Ant can execute JavaScript without needing any additional dependent libraries. The JavaScript code can read a fileset, transform the file names, and write them to a file.
<fileset id="jars" dir="${lib.dir}">
<include name="*.jar"/>
</fileset>
<target name="init">
<script language="javascript"><![CDATA[
var out = new java.io.PrintWriter(new java.io.FileWriter('jars.txt'));
var iJar = project.getReference('jars').iterator();
while (iJar.hasNext()) {
var jar = new String(iJar.next());
out.println(jar);
}
out.close();
]]></script>
</target>
Try the ReplaceRegExp optional task.
ReplaceRegExp is a directory based task for replacing the occurrence of a given regular expression with a substitution pattern in a selected file or set of files.
There are a few examples near the bottom of the page to get you started.
Looks like you need a conbination of tasks:
This strips the '\r' and '\n' characters of a file and load it to a propertie:
<loadfile srcfile="${src.file}" property="${src.file.contents}">
<filterchain>
<filterreader classname="org.apache.tools.ant.filters.StripLineBreaks"/>
</filterchain>
</loadfile>
After loading the files concatenate them to another one:
<concat destfile="final.txt">
...
</concat>
Inside concat use a propertyset to reference the files content:
<propertyset id="properties-starting-with-bar">
<propertyref prefix="src.file"/>
</propertyset>
rodrigoap's answer is enough to build a pure ant solution, but it's not clean enough for me and would be some very complicated ant code, so I used a different method: I subclassed ant's echo task to make an echofileset task, which takes a fileset and a mapper. Subclassing echo buys me the ability to output to a file. A regexmapper performs the transformation on filenames that I need. I hardcoded it to print out each file on a separate line, but if I needed more flexibility I could add an optional separator attribute. I also thought about providing the ability to output to a property, too, but it turned out I didn't need it since I echo'ed straight to a file.

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