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<h2><a name="delete">Delete</a></h2>
<h3>Description</h3>
<p>Deletes either a single file, all files in a specified directory and its
sub-directories, or a set of files specified by one or more <a href="../CoreTypes/fileset.html">FileSet</a>s.
When specifying a set of files, empty directories are <i>not</i> removed by default.
To remove empty directories, use the <em>includeEmptyDirs</em> atribute.</p>
<h3>Parameters</h3>
<table border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">
<tr>
<td valign="top"><b>Attribute</b></td>
<td valign="top"><b>Description</b></td>
<td align="center" valign="top"><b>Required</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">file</td>
<td valign="top">The file to delete.</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle" rowspan="2">at least one of the two</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">dir</td>
<td valign="top">The directory to delete files from.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">verbose</td>
<td valign="top">Show name of each deleted file ("true"/"false").
Default is "false" when omitted.</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">quiet</td>
<td valign="top">If the file does not exist, do not display a diagnostic
message or modify the exit status to reflect an error (unless Ant
has been invoked with the -verbose or -debug switches).
This means that if a file or directory cannot be deleted,
then no error is reported. This setting emulates the
-f option to the Unix "rm" command.
("true"/"false").
Default is "false" meaning things are "noisy".</td>
Setting this to true, implies setting failonerror to false.
<td align="center" valign="top">No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">failonerror</td>
<td valign="top">
This flag (which is only of relevance if 'quiet' is false),
controls whether an error -such as a failure to delete a file-
stops the build task, or is merely reported to the screen.
The default is "true"
</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">includeEmptyDirs</td>
<td valign="top">Set to "true" to delete empty directories when
using filesets. Default is "false".</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">includes</td>
<td valign="top"><i>Deprecated.</i> Comma separated list of patterns of files that must be
deleted. All files are in the current directory
and any sub-directories are deleted when omitted.</td>
<td valign="top" align="center">No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">includesfile</td>
<td valign="top"><i>Deprecated.</i> The name of a file. Each line of this file is
taken to be an include pattern</td>
<td valign="top" align="center">No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">excludes</td>
<td valign="top"><i>Deprecated.</i> Comma separated list of patterns of files that must be
excluded from the deletion list. No files (except default excludes) are excluded when omitted.</td>
<td valign="top" align="center">No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">excludesfile</td>
<td valign="top"><i>Deprecated.</i> The name of a file. Each line of this file is
taken to be an exclude pattern</td>
<td valign="top" align="center">No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">defaultexcludes</td>
<td valign="top"><i>Deprecated.</i> Indicates whether default excludes should be used or not
("yes"/"no"). Default excludes are used when omitted.</td>
<td valign="top" align="center">No</td>
</tr>
</table>
<h3>Examples</h3>
<pre> <delete file="/lib/ant.jar"/></pre>
<p>deletes the file <code>/lib/ant.jar</code>.</p>
<pre> <delete dir="lib"/></pre>
<p>deletes the <code>lib</code> directory, including all files
and subdirectories of <code>lib</code>.</p>
<pre> <delete>
<fileset dir="." includes="**/*.bak"/>
</delete>
</pre>
<p>deletes all files with the extension "<code>.bak</code>" from the current directory
and any sub-directories.</p>
<pre> <delete includeEmptyDirs="true" >
<fileset dir="build" />
</delete>
</pre>
<p>deletes all files and subdirectories of <code>build</code>, including
<code>build</code> itself.</p>
<hr><p align="center">Copyright © 2000,2001 Apache Software Foundation. All rights
Reserved.</p>
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