Ant OS-specific copy task

I have an Ant script that performs a copy operation using the copy task. It was written for Windows and has a hardcoded C:\ path as the todir argument. I see the exec task has an OS argument, is there a similar way to branch a copy based on OS?

From stackoverflow timbonicus

• You can't use a variable and assign it depending on the type? You could put it in a build.properties file. Or you could assign it using a condition.

  From sblundy

• You could use the condition task to branch to different copy tasks... from the ant manual:

  <condition property="isMacOsButNotMacOsX">
  <and>
    <os family="mac"/>
  
    <not>
      <os family="unix"/>
  
    </not>
  </and>
  

  From jsight

• Declare a variable that is the root folder of your operation. Prefix your folders with that variable, including in the copy task.

  Set the variable based on the OS using a conditional, or pass it as an argument to the Ant script.

  From Kevin Conner

• I would recommend putting the path in a property, then setting the property conditionally based on the current OS.

  <condition property="foo.path" value="C:\Foo\Dir">
     <os family="windows"/>
  </condition>
  <condition property="foo.path" value="/home/foo/dir">
     <os family="unix"/>
  </condition>
  
  <fail unless="foo.path">No foo.path set for this OS!</fail>
  

  As a side benefit, once it is in a property you can override it without editing the Ant script.

  ivan_ivanovich_ivanoff : Isn't there a way to declare a path in Ant that is treated equally under Windows and Linux? I'm just curious.
  From benzado

• The previously posted suggestions of an OS specific variable will work, but many times you can simply omit the "C:" prefix and use forward slashes (Unix style) file paths and it will work on both Windows and Unix systems.

  So, if you want to copy files to "C:/tmp" on Windows and "/tmp" on Unix, you could use something like:

  <copy todir="/tmp" overwrite="true" >
           <fileset dir="${lib.dir}">
               <include name="*.jar" />
           </fileset>
  </copy>
  

  If you do want/need to set a conditional path based on OS, it can be simplified as:

      <condition property="root.drive" value="C:/" else="/">
          <os family="windows" />
      </condition>
      <copy todir="${root.drive}tmp" overwrite="true" >
               <fileset dir="${lib.dir}">
                   <include name="*.jar" />
               </fileset>
      </copy>
  

  From Mads Hansen

• Ant-contrib has the <osfamily /> task. This will expose the family of the os to a property (that you specify the name of). This could be of some benefit.

  From Glenn2041