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<h2><a name="delete">Delete</a></h2>
<h3>Description</h3>
<p>Deletes a single file, a specified directory and all its files and
subdirectories, or a set of files specified by one or more
<a href="../Types/resources.html#collection">resource collection</a>s.
The literal implication of <code><fileset></code> is that
directories are not included; however the removal of empty directories can
be triggered when using nested filesets by setting the
<code>includeEmptyDirs</code> attribute to <i>true</i>. Note that this
attribute is meaningless in the context of any of the various resource
collection types that <i>do</i> include directories, but that no attempt
will be made to delete non-empty directories in any case. Whether a
directory is empty or not is decided by looking into the filesystem -
include or exclude patterns don't apply here.</p>
<p>
If you use this task to delete temporary files created by editors
and it doesn't seem to work, read up on the
<a href="../dirtasks.html#defaultexcludes">default exclusion set</a>
in <strong>Directory-based Tasks</strong>, and see the
<code>defaultexcludes</code> attribute below.
<p>For historical reasons <code><delete dir="x"/></code> is
different from <code><delete><fileset
dir="x"/></delete></code>, it will try to remove everything
inside "x" including "x" itself, not taking default excludes into
account, blindly following all symbolic links. If you need more
control, use a nested <code><fileset></code>.</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, specified as either the simple
filename (if the file exists in the current base directory), a
relative-path filename, or a full-path filename.</td>
<td align="center" valign="middle" rowspan="2">At least one of the two,
unless nested resource collections are specified
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">dir</td>
<td valign="top">The directory to delete, including all its files and
subdirectories.<br>
<b>Note:</b> <code>dir</code> is <em>not</em> used
to specify a directory name for <code>file</code>; <code>file</code>
and <code>dir</code> are independent of each other.<br>
<b>WARNING:</b> Do <b>not</b> set <code>dir</code> to
<code>"."</code>, <code>"${basedir}"</code>,
or the full-pathname equivalent unless you truly <em>intend</em> to
recursively remove the entire contents of the current base directory
(and the base directory itself, if different from the current working
directory).</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">verbose</td>
<td valign="top">Whether to show the name of each deleted file.</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">No, default "false"</i></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">quiet</td>
<td valign="top">If the specified file or directory does not exist,
do not display a diagnostic message (unless Apache Ant
has been invoked with the <code>-verbose</code> or
<code>-debug</code> 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
<code>-f</code> option to the Unix <em>rm</em> command.
Setting this to "true" implies setting
<code>failonerror</code> to "false".
</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">No, default "false"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">failonerror</td>
<td valign="top">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 <code>quiet</code> is "false".</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">No, default "true"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">includeemptydirs</td>
<td valign="top">Whether to delete empty directories
when using filesets.</td>
<td align="center" valign="top">No, default "false"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">includes</td>
<td valign="top"><em>Deprecated.</em> Use resource collections.
Comma- or space-separated list of patterns of
files that must be deleted. All files are relative to the directory
specified in <code>dir</code>.</td>
<td valign="top" align="center">No</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">includesfile</td>
<td valign="top"><em>Deprecated.</em> Use resource collections.
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"><em>Deprecated.</em> Use resource collections.
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 <code>dir</code>.
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"><em>Deprecated.</em> Use resource collections.
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"><em>Deprecated.</em> Use resource collections.
Whether to use <a href="../dirtasks.html#defaultexcludes">
default excludes.</a></td>
<td align="center" valign="top">No, default "true"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">deleteonexit</td>
<td valign="top">
Indicates whether to use File#deleteOnExit() if there is a
failure to delete a file, this causes the jvm to attempt
to delete the file when the jvm process is terminating.
<em>Since Ant 1.6.2</em></td>
<td align="center" valign="top">No, default "false"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">removeNotFollowedSymlinks</td>
<td valign="top">
Whether symbolic links (not the files/directories they link to)
should be removed if they haven't been followed because
followSymlinks was false or the maximum number of symbolic links
was too big.
<em>Since Ant 1.8.0</em></td>
<td align="center" valign="top">No, default "false"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top">performGCOnFailedDelete</td>
<td valign="top">
If Ant fails to delete a file or directory it will retry the
operation once. If this flag is set to true it will perform a
garbage collection before retrying the delete.<br/>
Setting this flag to true is known to resolve some problems on
Windows (where it defaults to true) but also for directory trees
residing on an NFS share.
<em>Since Ant 1.8.3</em></td>
<td align="center" valign="top">No, default "true" on
Windows and "true" on any other OS.</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 subdirectories.</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>
<pre> <delete includeemptydirs="true">
<fileset dir="build" includes="**/*"/>
</delete>
</pre>
<p>deletes all files and subdirectories of <code>build</code>, without
<code>build</code> itself.</p>
<pre> <delete includeemptydirs="true">
<fileset dir="src" includes="**/.svn/" defaultexcludes="false"/>
</delete>
</pre>
<p>deletes the subversion metadata directories under <code>src</code>. Because <code>.svn</code>
is on of the <a href="../dirtasks.html#defaultexcludes">default excludes</a> you have to use the
<code>defaultexcludes</code> flag, otherwise Ant wont delete these directories and the files in it.</p>
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