How to copy a directory using Ant

Question

I have used copydir to copy a directory tree but it is deprecated. My directory contains some sub-directories, and some of those contain files and others contai

Answer 1

I'm adding a more generic pattern to copy all subfolders.

<copy todir="${dest.dir}" >  
  <fileset dir="${src.dir}" includes="**/*"/>
</copy>

See Patterns for details.

Answer 2

A fine point: ant will only copy the sub-directories if the source files are newer than the destination files. [1] In my case, the sub-dirs were not being copied (I am using verbose="true"), since there were no changes and they were already in the destination. You can use "overwrite" to force it, or touch some of the files in your source sub-dirs.

Answer 3

Copy contents including the directory itself.

<copy todir="${dest.dir}" >  
    <fileset dir="${src.dir.parent}">  
        <include name="${src.dir}/**"/>
    </fileset>
</copy>

Note: ${src.dir} is relative to ${src.dir.parent}, and not a full path

Answer 4

You should only have to specify the directory (sans the includes property):

<copy todir="../new/dir">
    <fileset dir="src_dir"/>
</copy>

See the manual for more details and examples.

Answer 5

From the example here, you can write a simple Ant file using copy task.

<project name="MyProject" default="copy" basedir=".">
    <target name="copy">
        <copy todir="./new/dir">
           <fileset dir="src_dir"/>
        </copy>
    </target>
</project>

This should copy everything inside src_dir (excluding it) to new/dir.