Listing Components for a Metadata Type

The listMetadata target retrieves property information about metadata components in your organization. This target is useful when you want to identify individual components in package.xml for a retrieval or if you want a high-level view of particular metadata types in your organization. For example, you could use this target to return a list of names of all the CustomObject or Layout components in your organization, and use this information to make a subsequent retrieval to return a subset of these components. The following parameters may be set for each <sf:listMetadata> target:

Field	Description
username	Required if sessionId isn’t specified. The Salesforce username used for login. The username associated with this connection must have the “Modify All Data” permission. Typically, this permission is enabled only for System Administrator users.
password	Required if sessionId isn’t specified. The password you use to log in to the organization associated with this project. If you are using a security token, paste the 25-digit token value to the end of your password.
sessionId	Required if username and password aren’t specified. The ID of an active Salesforce session or the OAuth access token. A session is created after a user logs in to Salesforce successfully with a username and password. Use a session ID for logging in to an existing session instead of creating a new session. Alternatively, use an access token for OAuth authentication. For more information, see Authenticating Apps with OAuth in the Salesforce Help.
serverurl	Optional. The Salesforce server URL (if blank, defaults to `login.salesforce.com`). To connect to a sandbox instance, change this value to `test.salesforce.com`.
metadataType	Required. The name of the metadata type for which you are retrieving property information; for example, `CustomObject` for custom objects, or `Report` for custom reports. For a full list of allowed values, see Component Types.
folder	The folder associated with the component. This field is required for components that use folders, such as Dashboard, Document, EmailTemplate, or Report.
apiVersion	Optional. The API version to use for the metadata. The default is 40.0.
resultFilePath	Optional. The path of the output file where results are stored. The default output is the console. Directing the output to a file makes it easier to extract the relevant information for your package.xml manifest file.
trace	Optional. Defaults to `false`. Prints the SOAP requests and responses to the console. Note that this will show the user's password in plain text during login.

To get property information for components of one metadata type, such as CustomObject, specify a target in the build.xml file using <sf:listMetadata>.

1<target name="listMetadata">
2  <sf:listMetadata
3    username="${sf.username}"
4    password="${sf.password}"
5    sessionId="${sf.sessionId}"
6    serverurl="${sf.serverurl}"
7    metadataType="CustomObject"
8    resultFilePath="listMetadata/list.log"/>
9</target>

The following example uses a component that resides in a folder.

1<target name="listMetadata">
2  <sf:listMetadata
3    username="${sf.username}"
4    password="${sf.password}"
5    sessionId="${sf.sessionId}"
6    serverurl="${sf.serverurl}"
7    metadataType="Report"
8    folder="Marketing_Reports"
9    resultFilePath="listMetadata/list.log"/>
10</target>

Force.com Migration Tool Guide

Listing Components for a Metadata Type