Ant- Moving files and directories
First off I wanna say that I'm running all my Ant task via Eclipse and not the command line. If there is a demand to know how to install Ant and run it from the command line I'll do that post separately.
So, what is Ant? Well to steal a quote from Mark Drew, think of Ant as .bat files on steroids. You use XML to describe a set of commands to run a whole range of tasks to do anything from SVN/CVS checkouts, unit tests, FTP, emails, sql, moving/copying folders/files generally just name it!
In this guide I want to cover creating a build.xml file and moving files/folders. I'm assuming you've got Eclipse and you know you way around it enough. Before we do begin you will need to ensure that you can see the Console View.
Window >> Show View >> Other >> General >> Console
Lets begin!
Create a new project in your Eclipse workspace. The type of project doesn't matter, though I'm creating a CFEclipse one as I want to move .cfm pages around. From within the project create a new file called Build.xml right-click on the project folder >> new >> file >> file name (build.xml)
In your build.xml add the following and save:
Now while still in the editor right-click anywhere on your build.xml file and choose the following: Run As >> Ant Build
In the console window you should see something like
Buildfile: /[your eclipse work space root]/Ant/build.xml
[echo] Hello foo, I am the build.xml
BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 136 milliseconds
You've ran your first build.xml file excellent. Now lets move a file. Create two more folders in your Ant project called 'folder_test' and 'folder_live' and in the first folder put a file called 'index.cfm'. Your project should now look like this
- build.xml
- [folder_live]
- [folder_test]
- index.cfm
A description of what this build file does
Now while still in the editor right-click anywhere on your build.xml file and choose the following: Run As >> Ant Build
If all has gone well you should of just moved your index.cfm file from test to live. Thats all good and well but I doubt you ever have to move just one file my guess is that you have a host of folders and files. In the directory 'folder_test' add two other directories called 'images' and 'css' and move 'index.cfm' back as well. You new directory structure should look like this:- build.xml
- [folder_live]
- [folder_test]
- [css]
- [images]
- index.cfm
The plan now is move the complete directory of 'folder_test' to 'folder_live':
Again while in the editor right-click anywhere on your build.xml file and choose the following: Run As >> Ant Build
Of course there is more you can do, rather than going through full set examples here or some of the other features:
Move a set of files to a new directory
Move a list of files to a new directory
Append ".bak" to the names of all files in a directory.
More resources: