Delete Task

Delete

Description

Deletes a single file, a specified directory and all its files and subdirectories, or a set of files specified by one or more FileSets. When specifying a set of files, empty directories are not removed by default. To remove empty directories, use the includeEmptyDirs attribute.

If you use this task to delete temporary files created by editors and it doesn't seem to work, read up on the default exclusion set in Directory-based Tasks, and see the defaultexcludes attribute below.

Parameters

Attribute	Description	Required
file	The file to delete, specified as either the simple filename (if the file exists in the current base directory), a relative-path filename, or a full-path filename.	At least one of the two, unless a `<fileset>` is specified.
dir	The directory to delete, including all its files and subdirectories. Note: `dir` is not used to specify a directory name for `file`; `file` and `dir` are independent of each other. WARNING: Do not set `dir` to `"."`, `"${basedir}"`, or the full-pathname equivalent unless you truly intend to recursively remove the entire contents of the current base directory (and the base directory itself, if different from the current working directory).	At least one of the two, unless a `<fileset>` is specified.
verbose	Show the name of each deleted file ("true"/"false"). Default is "false" when omitted.	No
quiet	If the specified file or directory does not exist, do not display a diagnostic message (unless Ant has been invoked with the `‑verbose` or `‑debug` switches) or modify the exit status to reflect an error. When set to "true", if a file or directory cannot be deleted, no error is reported. This setting emulates the `-f` option to the Unix rm command. Default is "false". Setting this to "true" implies setting `failonerror` to "false".	No
failonerror	Controls whether an error (such as a failure to delete a file) stops the build or is merely reported to the screen. Only relevant if `quiet` is "false". Default is "true".	No
includeEmptyDirs	Set to "true" to delete empty directories when using filesets. Default is "false".	No
includes	Deprecated. Use `<fileset>`. Comma- or space-separated list of patterns of files that must be deleted. All files are relative to the directory specified in `dir`.	No
includesfile	Deprecated. Use `<fileset>`. The name of a file. Each line of this file is taken to be an include pattern	No
excludes	Deprecated. Use `<fileset>`. Comma- or space-separated list of patterns of files that must be excluded from the deletion list. All files are relative to the directory specified in `dir`. No files (except default excludes) are excluded when omitted.	No
excludesfile	Deprecated. Use `<fileset>`. The name of a file. Each line of this file is taken to be an exclude pattern	No
defaultexcludes	Indicates whether default excludes should be used or not ("yes"/"no"). Default excludes are used when omitted.	No

Examples

  <delete file="/lib/ant.jar"/>

deletes the file /lib/ant.jar.

  <delete dir="lib"/>

deletes the lib directory, including all files and subdirectories of lib.

  <delete>
    <fileset dir="." includes="**/*.bak"/>
  </delete>

deletes all files with the extension .bak from the current directory and any subdirectories.

  <delete includeEmptyDirs="true">
    <fileset dir="build"/>
  </delete>

deletes all files and subdirectories of build, including build itself.