Apache Ant Delete Task

This task is used to delete a single file, directory or subdirectories. We can also delete set of files by specifying set of files. It does not remove empty directory by default, we need to use includeEmptyDirs attribute to remove that directory.

It has various attributes that are tabled below.

Apache Ant Delete Task Attributes

Apache Ant Delete Example

Lets see an example to understand the functioning of delete task.

Delete a File

Delete a Directory

Delete all the .java files from the current directory and subdirectories.

Delete all the files and subdirectories of build, even build itself.