Question

I created some temp files with a custom task in the system’s default temp folder. Depending on different configuration, there will be two or three files — one is codebaseXX.log (the XX part means a number string that Java created automatically for the temp file) and the other(s) is(are) local-changes-XX.diff.

Currently, in the file-generating task, I put the full name of the first file and “local-changes*.diff” into two properties (say file1 and file2). And then I copy them back using <copy>:

<copy todir="log/configs" >
    <fileset dir="${tmpdir}">
        <include name="${file1}" />
        <include name="${file2}" />
    </fileset>
</copy>

For example, I may have the following files generated:

codebase529846369165360813.log
local-changes-original5410491830492606676.diff
local-changes-simple7778114354296759394.diff (if exists)

and I want to copy exactly what is exactly generated this time (because there are changes that some old files are not deleted) and rename them, like this:

codebase.log
local-changes-original.diff
local-changes-simple.diff (if exists)

My question is: My task knows exactly which files is generated, but how to tell the other tasks that those files should be processed? Also, how to smartly rename them?

Answer 1

Have you considered using ANT tempfile task to manage these temporary files for you?