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      <h2><a name="copy">Concat</a></h2>

      <h3>Description</h3>

      <p>
	Concatenates a file, or a series of files, to a single file or
	the console. The destination file will be created if it does
	not exist, though the the <var>append</var> attribute may be
	used to alter this behavior.
      </p>

      <p>
	<a href="../CoreTypes/fileset.html">FileSet</a>s and/or <a
	href="../CoreTypes/filelist.html">FileList</a>s are used to
	select which files are to be concatenated. There is no
	singular 'file' attribute to specify a single file to cat -- a
	fileset or filelist must also be used in these cases.
      </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">destfile</td>
	  <td valign="top">
	    The destination file for the concatenated stream.
	  </td>
	  <td valign="top" align="center">
	    No, the console will be used as the destination for the
	    stream in the absence of this attribute.
	  </td>
	</tr>

	<tr>
	  <td valign="top">append</td>
	  <td valign="top">
	    Specifies whether or not the file specified by 'destfile'
	    should be overwritten. Defaults to &quot;yes&quot;.
	  </td>
	  <td valign="top" align="center">No</td>
	</tr>

        <tr>
          <td valign="top">encoding</td>
          <td valign="top">
            Specifies the encoding for the input files. Please see <a
            href="http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.2/docs/guide/internat/encoding.doc.html">http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.2/docs/guide/internat/encoding.doc.html</a>
            for a list of possible values. Defaults to the platform's
            default character encoding.
          </td>
          <td valign="top" align="center">No</td>
        </tr>

      </table>

      <h3>Parameters specified as nested elements</h3>

      <h4>fileset</h4>

      <p>
	<a href="../CoreTypes/fileset.html">FileSet</a>s are used to
	select files to be concatenated. Note that the order in which
	the files selected from a fileset are concatenated is
	<i>not</i> guaranteed. If this is an issue, use multiple
	filesets or consider using filelists.
      </p>

      <h4>filelist</h4>

      <p>
        <a href="../CoreTypes/filelist.html">FileList</a>s are used to
        select files to be concatenated. The file ordering in the
        <var>files</var> attribute will be the same order in which the
        files are concatenated.
      </p>

      <h3>Examples</h3>

      <p><b>Cat a string to a file:</b></p>

      <pre>
  &lt;cat tofile=&quot;README&quot;&gt;Hello, World!&lt;/cat&gt;
      </pre>

      <p><b>Cat a series of files to the console:</b></p>

      <pre>
  &lt;cat&gt;
    &lt;fileset dir=&quot;messages&quot; includes=&quot;*important*&quot; /&gt;
  &lt;/cat&gt;
      </pre>

      <p><b>Cat a single file, appending if the destination file exists:</b></p>

      <pre>
  &lt;cat tofile=&quot;NOTES&quot; append=&quot;true&quot;&gt;
    &lt;filelist dir=&quot;notes&quot; files=&quot;note.txt&quot; /&gt;
  &lt;/cat&gt;
      </pre>

      <p><b>Cat a series of files, overwriting if the destination file exists:</b></p>

      <pre>
  &lt;cat tofile=&quot;${docbook.dir}/all-sections.xml&quot;&gt;
    &lt;filelist dir=&quot;${docbook.dir}/sections&quot; files=&quot;introduction.xml,overview.xml&quot; /&gt;
    &lt;fileset dir=&quot;${docbook.dir}&quot; includes=&quot;sections/*.xml&quot; excludes=&quot;introduction.xml,overview.xml&quot; /&gt;
  &lt;/cat&gt;
      </pre>

      <hr>

      <p align="center">
	Copyright &copy; 2002 Apache Software Foundation. All
	Rights Reserved.
      </p>

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