These build files rely on the fact that references to top level data types get added before the data type's child elements have been added. In a case like <path id="foo"> <fileset dir="not-there" /> </path> The toString method will return "" before the fileset has been added but throw a BuildException afterwards. A logging statement in Project#addReference will call toString and thus make the build fail, while it would work in 1.5 as long as you never use the path. git-svn-id: https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/ant/core/trunk@273127 13f79535-47bb-0310-9956-ffa450edef68master