The example for recursive removal of .svn-folders in manual/Tasks/delete.html does not work on my machine. The problem seems to be that the .svn-folders are not empty. Changing it from <delete includeemptydirs="true"> <fileset dir="src" includes="**/.svn" defaultexcludes="false"/> </delete> to <delete includeemptydirs="true"> <fileset dir="src" includes="**/.svn/" defaultexcludes="false"/> </delete> worked for me (added trailing /). I am pretty new to ant so I do not know if it is the example or the behavior that is wrong.
I can confirm that this problem exists. There should be no difference between "**/.svn" and "**/.svn/", in the example and at one time there was not (the doc was correct). Peter
There is a (documented) difference between .svn and .svn/ - the later is an implicit .svn/** . See http://ant.apache.org/manual/dirtasks.html#patterns the paragraph just before "Example patterns". I don't know whether the doc has ever been cofrrect and anything changed in <delete> but the fileset as stated in the doc doesn't match the directories' contents and thus the directories will never be empty. It also shouldn't match the directories themselves since it is a fileset and not a dirset.
ah, ok. It is a little strange. I guess, then, that it never worked! Peter
fixing the documentation and marking resolved. Thanks Alfred for reporting and Peter and Stefan for the comments.