B.9 CopyTask
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## B.9 CopyTask

Copies files or directories. Files are only copied if the source file is newer than the destination file, or when the destination file does not exist. It is possible to explictly overwrite existing files.

`CopyTask` does not allow self copying, i.e. copying a file to the same name for security reasons.

Table B.10: Attributes

Name | Type | Description | Default | Required
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
`file` | `String` | The source file. | Yes |
`tofile` | `String` | The destination the file is to be written to. `tofile` specifies a `full` filename. If you only want to specify a directory to copy to, use `todir`. Either this or the `todir` attribute is required. | n/a | Yes (or `todir`)
`todir` | `String` | The directory the file is to be copied to. The file will have the same name of the source file. If you want to specify a different name, use `tofile`. The directory must exist. | n/a | Yes (or `tofile`)
`overwrite` | `Boolean` | Overwrite existing files even if the destination files are newer. | `false` | No
tstamp or preservelastmodified | `Boolean` | If set to `true`, the new file will have the same mtime as the old one. | `false` | No
preservemode or preservepermissions | `Boolean` | If set to `true`, the new file (and directory) will have the same permissions as the old one. The `mode` specified for directory creation will be ignored. | `true` | No
`includeemptydirs` | `Boolean` | If set to `true`, also empty directories are copied. | `true` | No
`mode` | `Integer` | Mode (octal) to create directories with. | From umask | No
`haltonerror` | `Boolean` | If set to `true`, halts the build when errors are encountered. | `true` | No

### Note

No automatic exapnsion of symbolic links

By default, `CopyTask` does not expand / dereference symbolic links, and will simply copy the link itself. To enable dereferencing, set `expandsymboliclinks` to `true` in the `<fileset>` tag.

### B.9.1 Examples

On the one hand, CopyTask can be used to copy file by file:

    <copy file="somefile.txt" tofile="/tmp/anotherfile.bak" overwrite="true"/>

Additionally, `CopyTask` supports Filesets, i.e. you can easily include/exclude one or more files. For more information, see Appendix D, Core Types -- pay particular attention to the `defaultexcludes` attribute. Appendix F, Core mappers and Appendix E, Core filters are also supported by `CopyTask`, so you can do almost everything that needs processing the content of the files or the filename.

    <copy todir="/tmp/backup" >
      <fileset dir=".">
        <include name="**/*.txt" />
        <include name="**/*.doc" />
        <include name="**/*.swx" />
      </fileset>
      <filelist dir="." files="test.html"/>
    </copy>

    <copy todir="build" >
      <fileset defaultexcludes="false" expandsymboliclinks="true" dir=".">
        <include name="**/*.php" />
      </fileset>
    </copy>

### B.9.2 Supported Nested Tags

- `fileset`

- `filelist`

- `filterchain`

- `mapper`

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