java - Troubleshooting "failed to create task or type foreach" when using <foreach>

Question

I'm trying to use the foreach loop in an Ant script but I get the message: Problem: failed to create task or type foreach Cause: The name is undefined.

I don't understand why this doesn't work. It is not a 3rd party library. It is a standard task that would be part of the latest version of Ant (1.8).

<target name="parse">
  <echo message="The first five letters of the alphabet are:"/>

  <foreach param="instance" list="a,b,c,d,e">

  </foreach>
</target>

Answer 1

It is a standard task that would be part of the latest version of Ant (1.8).

No, it's not. At least I can't find it in the list of core and optional tasks in the ant manual. It seems to be part of the ant-contrib project and thus needs to be installed separately.