use **/* in ant files when we specify the path

Question

Ant snippet generated from eclipse

I wanted to know what is meaning/significance of * / in path why they can't have only *.java If they want to exclude java file.

Answer 1

The ** is shorthand for "any nesting depth of directories (of any name)".

The * is shorthand for "any file (or directory)"

The .java is shorthand for "that ends with .java "

So, to recap **/*.java is any file, at any depth of the current directory tree, which ends in .java .