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<h2><a name="apply">Apply/<i>ExecOn</i></a></h2>
<p><i>The name execon is deprecated and only kept for backwards
compatibilty.</i></p>
<h3>Description</h3>
<p>Executes a system command. When the <i>os</i> attribute is specified, then
the command is only executed when Ant is run on one of the specified operating
systems.</p>
<p>The files and/or directories of a number of <a
href="../CoreTypes/fileset.html">FileSet</a>s are passed as arguments
to the system command.</p>
<p>If you specify a nested <a
href="../CoreTypes/mapper.html">mapper</a> and the destdir attribute,
the timestamp of each source file is compared to the timestamp of a
target file which is defined by the nested mapper element and searched
for in the given destdir.</p>
<p>At least one fileset is required, you must not specify more than
one mapper.</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">executable</td>
    <td valign="top">the command to execute without any command line
      arguments.</td>
    <td align="center" valign="top">Yes</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td valign="top">dest</td>
    <td valign="top">the directory where the &lt;apply&gt; expects the target files will be placed by the 
                     command, when it is executed. 
    </td>
    <td align="center" valign="top">Yes, if you specify a nested mapper</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td valign="top">dir</td>
    <td valign="top">the directory in which the command should be executed.</td>
    <td align="center" valign="top">No</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td valign="top">relative</td>
    <td valign="top">whether the filenames should be passed on the
      command line as absolute or relative pathnames (relative to the
      base directory of the corresponding fileset for source files or
      the dest attribute for target files).</td>
    <td align="center" valign="top">No, default is <i>false</i></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td valign="top">os</td>
    <td valign="top">list of Operating Systems on which the command may be
      executed.</td>
    <td align="center" valign="top">No</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td valign="top">output</td>
    <td valign="top">the file to which the output of the command should be
      redirected.</td>
    <td align="center" valign="top">No</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td valign="top">outputproperty</td>
    <td valign="top">the name of a property in which the output of the 
      command should be stored.</td>
    <td align="center" valign="top">No</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td valign="top">timeout</td>
    <td valign="top">Stop the command if it doesn't finish within the
      specified time (given in milliseconds).</td>
    <td align="center" valign="top">No</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td valign="top">failonerror</td>
    <td valign="top">Stop the buildprocess if the command exits with a
      returncode other than 0.</td>
    <td align="center" valign="top">No</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td valign="top">skipemptyfilesets</td>
    <td valign="top">Don't run the command, if no source files have
      been found or are newer than their corresponding target
      files.</td>
    <td align="center" valign="top">No, default is <i>false</i></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td valign="top">parallel</td>
    <td valign="top">Run the command only once, appending all files as
      arguments. If false, command will be executed once for every file. 
      Defaults to false. </td>
    <td align="center" valign="top">No</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td valign="top">type</td>
    <td valign="top">One of <i>file</i>, <i>dir</i> or
      <i>both</i>. If set to <i>file</i>, only the names of plain
      files will be sent to the command. If set to <i>dir</i>, only
      the names of directories are considered.</td>
    <td align="center" valign="top">No, default is <i>file</i></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td valign="top">newenvironment</td>
    <td valign="top">Do not propagate old environment when new environment
      variables are specified.</td>
    <td align="center" valign="top">No, default is <i>false</i></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td valign="top">vmlauncher</td>
    <td valign="top">Run command using the Java VM's execution facilities
        where available. If set to false the underlying OS's shell,
        either directly or through the antRun scripts, will be used.
        Under some operating systems, this gives access to facilities
        not normally available through the VM including, under Windows,
        being able to execute scripts, rather than their associated
        interpreter.</td>
    <td align="center" valign="top">No, default is <i>true</i></td>
  </tr>
</table>
<h3>Parameters specified as nested elements</h3>
<h4>fileset</h4>
<p>You can use any number of nested <code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>
elements to define the files for this task and refer to
<code>&lt;fileset&gt;</code>s defined elsewhere.</p>
<h4>arg</h4>
<p>Command line arguments should be specified as nested
<code>&lt;arg&gt;</code> elements. See <a
href="../using.html#arg">Command line arguments</a>.</p>
<h4>srcfile</h4>
<p>By default the file names of the source files will be added to the
end of the command line. If you need to place it somewhere different,
use a nested <code>&lt;srcfile&gt;</code> element between your
<code>&lt;arg&gt;</code> elements to mark the insertion point.</p>
<h4>targetfile</h4>
<p><code>&lt;targetfile&gt;</code> is similar to
<code>&lt;srcfile&gt;</code> and marks the position of the target
filename on the command line. If omitted, the target filenames will
not be added to the command line at all. This element can only be
specified, if you also define a nested mapper and the destdir
attribute.</p>
<h4>env</h4>
<p>It is possible to specify environment variables to pass to the
system command via nested <code>&lt;env&gt;</code> elements. See the
description in the section about <a href="exec.html#env">exec</a></p>
<h3>Examples</h3>
<blockquote><pre>
&lt;apply executable=&quot;ls&quot; &gt;
  &lt;arg value=&quot;-l&quot;/&gt;
  &lt;fileset dir=&quot;/tmp&quot;&gt;
    &lt;patternset&gt;
      &lt;exclude name=&quot;**/*.txt&quot;/&gt;
    &lt;/patternset&gt;
  &lt;/fileset&gt;
  &lt;fileset refid=&quot;other.files&quot;/&gt;
&lt;/apply&gt;
</pre></blockquote>
<p>invokes <code>ls -l</code>, adding the absolute filenames of all
files below <code>/tmp</code> not ending in <code>.txt</code> and all
files of the FileSet with <code>id</code> <code>other.files</code> to
the command line.</p>
<blockquote><pre>
&lt;apply executable=&quot;somecommand&quot; parallel=&quot;false&quot; &gt;
  &lt;arg value=&quot;arg1&quot;/&gt;
  &lt;srcfile/&gt;
  &lt;arg value=&quot;arg2&quot;/&gt;
  &lt;fileset dir=&quot;/tmp&quot;/&gt;
&lt;/apply&gt;
</pre></blockquote>
<p>invokes <code>somecommand arg1 SOURCEFILENAME arg2</code> for each
file in <code>/tmp</code> replacing SOURCEFILENAME with the absolute
filename of each file in turn. If <code>parallel</code> had been set
to true, SOURCEFILENAME would be replaced with the absolute filenames
of all files separated by spaces.</p>
<blockquote><pre>
&lt;apply executable=&quot;cc&quot; dest=&quot;src/C&quot; parallel=&quot;false&quot;&gt;
  &lt;arg value=&quot;-c&quot;/&gt;
  &lt;arg value=&quot;-o&quot;/&gt;
  &lt;targetfile/&gt;
  &lt;srcfile/&gt;
  &lt;fileset dir=&quot;src/C&quot; includes=&quot;*.c&quot;/&gt;
  &lt;mapper type=&quot;glob&quot; from=&quot;*.c&quot; to=&quot;*.o&quot;/&gt;
&lt;/apply&gt;
</pre></blockquote>
<p>invokes <code>cc -c -o TARGETFILE SOURCEFILE</code> for each
<code>.c</code> file that is newer than the corresponding
<code>.o</code>, replacing TARGETFILE with the absolute filename of
the <code>.o</code> and SOURCEFILE with the absolute name of the
<code>.c</code> file.</p>
<hr><p align="center">Copyright &copy; 2001-2002 Apache Software Foundation. All rights
Reserved.</p>

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