Apache Ant Copy Task

This task is used to copy file or resource to a new location. It copies only if the source files is newer than the destination file. We can also explicitly overwrite it by using overwrite attribute.

The todir attribute is used to set the destination path. This task uses various attributes which are given below.

Apache Ant Copy Task Attributes

Attribute	Description	Required
file	The file which is to be copied.	Yes
preservelastmodified	Preserve last modified name.	No
tofile	The file to copy to the destination file.	if the file attribute is also specified, then only todir is allowed.
todir	The destination directory name.
overwrite	Overwrite existing files even if the destination files are newer.	No
force	Overwrite read-only destination files.	No
filtering	Filter during the copy.	No
flatten	Copy files by ignoring the directory structure of the source files.	No
includeEmptyDirs	Copy empty directories.	No
failonerror	Display error message if copy is failed.	No
quiet	If true and failonerror is false, then do not log a warning message.	No
verbose	It logs the files that are being copied.	No
encoding	Encoding for copying file.	No
outputencoding	Display the encoding to be used.	No

Apache Ant Copy Task Example

Lets see an example in which we are copying data from one file to another. See the example below.

Copy single file

// build.xml

<project name = "java-ant project" default = "copy-file">
	<target name="copy-file">
		<copy file = "abc.txt" tofile = "xyz.txt"></copy>
	</target>
</project>

Copy file to directory

<project name = "java-ant project" default = "copy-file">
	<target name="copy-file">
		<copy file="abc.txt" todir="../someother/dir"/>
	</target>
</project>

Copy directory to another directory

<project name = "java-ant project" default = "copy-file">
	<target name="copy-file">
		<copy todir="../new/dir"><fileset dir="src_dir"/></copy>
	</target>
</project>

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