What does "**" mean in ANT?

Question

Often in ANT tasks, you will see "**" used similar to below:

<copy todir="/something">
  <fileset dir="/source">
    <exclude name="**/*.sql"/>
  </fileset>
</copy>

What is the ** in the name property? I've never seen the style of wildcard. Why is *.sql not good enough?

** tells it to search through the entire directory tree – dbugger May 06 '13 at 00:55 — dbugger, May 06 '13 at 00:55

score 24 · Accepted Answer · answered May 06 '13 at 00:55

24

*.sql means "in the given directory, all the files that end with .sql"

**\*.sql means "in the given directory and inside all of its subdirectories, all the files that end with .sql"

answered May 06 '13 at 00:55

SJuan76

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`**` is documented in the [Patterns section of the ANT manual](http://ant.apache.org/manual/dirtasks.html#patterns). – andrewdotn May 06 '13 at 02:52
2

Is this just an ANT thing or is this common in general Unix environments as well? – Jake Wilson May 06 '13 at 21:05

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 06 '13 at 10:24

0

You say .sql, it only includes sql files but not the sub-directories. If you want to include sql files and also the sql files inside sub-folders, u can use **/*.sql.

answered May 06 '13 at 10:24

user1969650

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What does "**" mean in ANT?

2 Answers2