Apache Ant Delete Task

This task is used to delete a single file, directory or subdirectories. We can also delete set of files by specifying set of files. It does not remove empty directory by default, we need to use includeEmptyDirs attribute to remove that directory.

It has various attributes that are tabled below.

Apache Ant Delete Task Attributes

Attribute	Description	Required
file	The file to be deleted	Resource (file,directory)
dir	The directory to delete.	Resource (file,directory)
verbose	Whether to show the name of each deleted file.	No
quiet	If resource is not exist, it does not display any message.	No
failonerror	It displays error on fail to delete the resource.	No
includeemptydirs	Delete empty directory too.	No
includes	List of files to be deleted.	No
includesfile	Includes file to be deleted.	No
excludes	Exclude file to delete.	No
excludesfile	Exclude to delete file.	No
defaultexcludes	Set default exclude.	No
deleteonexit	Delete on exit.	No
removeNotFollowedSymlinks	Whether symbolic links (not the files/directories they link to) should be removed.	No
performGCOnFailedDelete	If Ant fails to delete a file or directory it will retry the operation once.	No

Apache Ant Delete Example

Lets see an example to understand the functioning of delete task.

Delete a File

<project name="delete-project example" default="del">
	<target name="del">
		<delete file="/a/abc.java"/>
	</target>
</project>

Delete a Directory

<project name="delete-project example" default="del">
	<target name="del">
		<delete dir="lib"/>
	</target>
</project>

Delete all the .java files from the current directory and subdirectories.

<project name="delete-project example" default="del">
	<target name="del">
		<delete>
 			<fileset dir="." includes="**/*.java"/>
		</delete>
	</target>
</project>

Delete all the files and subdirectories of build, even build itself.

<project name="delete-project example" default="del">
	<target name="del">
		<delete includeEmptyDirs="true">
  			<fileset dir="build"/>
		</delete>
	</target>
</project>

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