Copy content of subfolders with Ant

antcopyfileset

How can I copy content of all subfolders of given folder using Ant?

i.e. I have such folder structure

folder/
folder/sub1/1.txt
folder/sub1/f1/1.txt
folder/sub2/2.txt
...

I don't know exact names of subfolders. And I need to copy content from all of them into one folder (keeping the structure of content, i.e. copying all files into one dir using flatten isn't a solution). I need to get

newfolder/1.txt
newfolder/1/1.txt
newfolder/2.txt
...

Does fileset allows to group subfolders in such a way?
** stands for zero or more directories, and usage of * as directory name is disallowed, i.e. <fileset dir="${dir}/*/" /> isn't acceptable.

Thanks in advance, Yury

Best Answer

<copy toDir="newfolder">
  <fileset dir="folder">
    <include name="*/**"/>
    <exclude name="*"/>
  </fileset>
  <regexpmapper from="^[^/]*/(.*)$$" to="\1" handledirsep="true"/>
</copy>

You only need to specify handledirsep if you ever intend to run this script in Windows.

Related Solutions

The difference between a deep copy and a shallow copy

Breadth vs Depth; think in terms of a tree of references with your object as the root node.

Shallow:

Before Copy Shallow Copying Shallow Done

The variables A and B refer to different areas of memory, when B is assigned to A the two variables refer to the same area of memory. Later modifications to the contents of either are instantly reflected in the contents of other, as they share contents.

Deep:

Before Copy Deep Copying Deep Done

The variables A and B refer to different areas of memory, when B is assigned to A the values in the memory area which A points to are copied into the memory area to which B points. Later modifications to the contents of either remain unique to A or B; the contents are not shared.

Java – How to copy an object in Java

Create a copy constructor:

class DummyBean {
  private String dummy;

  public DummyBean(DummyBean another) {
    this.dummy = another.dummy; // you can access  
  }
}

Every object has also a clone method which can be used to copy the object, but don't use it. It's way too easy to create a class and do improper clone method. If you are going to do that, read at least what Joshua Bloch has to say about it in Effective Java.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

The difference between a deep copy and a shallow copy

Java – How to copy an object in Java

Related Topic