# Ant User Manual

## Copy

### Description

Copies a file or Fileset to a new file or directory. Files are only copied if the source file is newer than the destination file, or when the destination file does not exist. However, you can explicitly overwrite files with the overwrite attribute.

FileSets are used to select files to copy. To use a fileset, the todir attribute must be set.

### Parameters

Attribute | Description | Required
file | The file to copy. | One of either file or at least one nested fileset element.
preservelastmodified | Give the copied files the same last modified time as the original files. Defaults to "no". | No
tofile | The file to copy to. | With the file attribute, either tofile or todir can be used. With nested filesets, only todir is allowed.
todir | The directory to copy to.
overwrite | Overwrite existing files even if the destination files are newer. Defaults to "no". | No
filtering | Indicates whether token filtering should take place during the copy. Defaults to "no". | No
flatten | Ignore directory structure of source directory, copy all files into a single directory, specified by the todir attribute. Defaults to "no". Note that you can achieve the same effect by using a flatten mapper | No
includeEmptyDirs | Copy empty directories included with the nested FileSet(s). Defaults to "yes". | No

### Parameters specified as nested elements

#### mapper

You can define file name transformations by using a nested mapper element. The default mapper used by `<copy>` is the identity.

### Examples

Copy a single file

      <copy file="myfile.txt" tofile="mycopy.txt"/>

Copy a file to a directory

      <copy file="myfile.txt" todir="../some/dir/tree"/>

Copy a directory to another directory

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

Copy a set of files to a directory

      <copy todir="../dest/dir" >
        <fileset dir="src_dir" >
          <exclude name="**/*.java"/>
        </fileset>
      </copy>

      <copy todir="../dest/dir" >
        <fileset dir="src_dir" excludes="**/*.java"/>
      </copy>

Copy a set of files to a directory appending "`.bak`" to the file name on the fly

      <copy todir="../backup/dir" >
        <fileset dir="src_dir" />
        <mapper type="glob" from="*" to="*.bak"/>
      </copy>

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