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Patternset

We said that Directory-based tasks can sometimes act as an implicit <fileset>, but in addition to that, a FileSet acts as an implicit <patternset>.

The inclusion and exclusion elements of the implicit PatternSet can be specified inside the directory-based task (or explicit fileset) via either:

When dealing with an external file, each line of the file is taken as a pattern that is added to the list of include or exclude patterns.

When both inclusion and exclusion are used, only files/directories that match at least one of the include patterns and don't match any of the exclude patterns are used. If no include pattern is given, all files are assumed to match the include pattern (with the possible exception of the default excludes).

Patterns
As described earlier, patterns are used for the inclusion and exclusion of files. These patterns look very much like the patterns used in DOS and UNIX:

'*' matches zero or more characters, '?' matches one character.

Examples:

*.java matches .java, x.java and FooBar.java, but not FooBar.xml (does not end with .java).

?.java matches x.java, A.java, but not .java or xyz.java (both don't have one character before .java).

Combinations of *'s and ?'s are allowed.

Matching is done per-directory. This means that first the first directory in the pattern is matched against the first directory in the path to match. Then the second directory is matched, and so on. For example, when we have the pattern /?abc/*/*.java and the path /xabc/foobar/test.java, the first ?abc is matched with xabc, then * is matched with foobar, and finally *.java is matched with test.java. They all match, so the path matches the pattern.

To make things a bit more flexible, we add one extra feature, which makes it possible to match multiple directory levels. This can be used to match a complete directory tree, or a file anywhere in the directory tree. To do this, ** must be used as the name of a directory. When ** is used as the name of a directory in the pattern, it matches zero or more directories. For example: /test/** matches all files/directories under /test/, such as /test/x.java, or /test/foo/bar/xyz.html, but not /xyz.xml.

There is one "shorthand" - if a pattern ends with / or then ** is appended. For example, mypackage/test/ is interpreted as if it were mypackage/test/**.

Example patterns

**/CVS/* Matches all files in CVS directories that can be located anywhere in the directory tree.
Matches:
CVS/Repository
org/apache/CVS/Entries
org/apache/jakarta/tools/ant/CVS/Entries

But not:
org/apache/CVS/foo/bar/Entries (foo/bar/
part does not match)
org/apache/jakarta/** Matches all files in the org/apache/jakarta directory tree.
Matches:
org/apache/jakarta/tools/ant/docs/index.html
org/apache/jakarta/test.xml

But not:
org/apache/xyz.java

(jakarta/ part is missing).
org/apache/**/CVS/* Matches all files in CVS directories that are located anywhere in the directory tree under org/apache.

Matches:
org/apache/CVS/Entries
org/apache/jakarta/tools/ant/CVS/Entries

But not:
org/apache/CVS/foo/bar/Entries

(foo/bar/ part does not match)
hline **/test/** Matches all files that have a test element in their path, including test as a filename.

When these patterns are used in inclusion and exclusion, you have a powerful way to select just the files you want.


next up previous contents index
Next: Selectors Up: Directory-based Tasks Previous: Directory-based Tasks   Contents   Index
Andrew Marlow 2003-07-08