Move Task

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
preservelastmodified	Give the moved files the same last modified time as the original source files. (Note: Ignored on Java 1.1)	No; defaults to false.
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
failonerror	Log a warning message, but do not stop the build, when the file to copy does not exist or one of the nested filesets points to a directory that doesn't exist or an error occurs while moving.	No; defaults to true.
verbose	Log the files that are being moved.	No; defaults to false.
encoding	The encoding to assume when filter-copying the files. since Ant 1.5.	No - defaults to default JVM encoding
outputencoding	The encoding to use when writing the files. since Ant 1.6.	No - defaults to the value of the encoding attribute if given or the default JVM encoding otherwise.
enablemultiplemapping	If true the task will process to all the mappings for a given source path. If false the task will only process the first file or directory. This attribute is only relevant if there is a mapper subelement. since Ant 1.6.	No - defaults to false.

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.

filterchain

The Move task supports nested FilterChains.

If <filterset> and <filterchain> elements are used inside the same <move> task, all <filterchain> elements are processed first followed by <filterset> elements.

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