Ant-contrib Tasks: For

# For

The for task iterates over a list, a list of paths, or both. If both, list and paths, are specified, the list will be evaluated first. Nested paths are evaluated in the order they appear in the task.

This task is the same as the <foreach> task, except that it uses a nested sequential for each iteration. It makes use of ant's macrodef task, so the @{} notation is used for parameter substition.

This task only works for ant version greater than or equal to ant 1.6beta3.

## Parameters

Attribute | Description | Required
--- | --- | ---
list | The list of values to process, with the delimiter character, indicated by the "delimiter" attribute, separating each value. | Yes, unless a nested path has been specified.
param | Name of the parameter to pass the tokens or files in as to the sequential. | Yes
delimiter | The delimiter string that separates the values in the "list" attribute. | No, defaults to ",".
trim | If `true`, any leading or trailing whitespace will be removed from the list item before it is passed to the sequential. | No. Defaults to false.

## Parameters specified as nested elements

### path

Paths are used to select sets of files or directories to iterate over.

Using a path allows you to determine the order by which files are considered by using filelists or explicit `pathelements`. You also can specify whether you want to iterate over files or directories by chosing either filesets or dirsets.

### sequential

This is the list of tasks to be run for each iteration of the list.

### Example

To print out the first five letters of the latin alphabet:

>     <echo message="The first five letters of the alphabet are:"/>
>     <for list="a,b,c,d,e" param="letter">
>       <sequential>
>         <echo>Letter @{letter}</echo>
>       </sequential>
>     </for>

A more complicated example to to iterate over a set of c++ source files and invoke the cc task on them:

>     <for param="file">
>       <path>
>         <fileset dir="${test.dir}/mains" includes="*.cpp"/>
>       </path>
>       <sequential>
>         <propertyregex override="yes"
>           property="program"  input="@{file}"
>           regexp=".*/([^\.]*)\.cpp" replace="\1"/>
>         <mkdir dir="${obj.dir}/${program}"/>
>         <mkdir dir="${build.bin.dir}"/>
>         <cc link="executable" objdir="${obj.dir}/${program}"
>             outfile="${build.bin.dir}/${program}">
>           <compiler refid="compiler.options"/>
>           <fileset file="@{file}"/>
>           <linker refid="linker-libs"/>
>         </cc>
>       </sequential>
>     </for>

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