I am trying to under the fact that the migration tool sometimes fails with "Error: Not in package.xml", while it doesn't complain about the same for some metadata types. I am aware of the fact that only elements specified in the 'package.xml' should exist in the 'src' folder. 
So if i have some 'objects' metadata inside src, and not mentioned in the package.xml; it throws the Error. 
But if i still have metadata like 'Communities' , 'workflows', the migration Ant task doesn't seem to throw the error, even if i don't specify them in the package.xml. 

i am working in a developer edition and the version is 38.0 (specified in the package.xml), may be the API version

Hi All,
I am deploying below package from one organization to other organization through ANT tool. I am able to retrieve successfully but while deploying same package I am facing "Error: Not in package.xml" failure.
Package.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Package xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
	<types>
		<members>Account.curYTDSales__c</members>
        <name>CustomField</name>
    </types>
	<version>36.0</version>
</Package>

Retrieved Metadata is

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<CustomObject xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
    <fields>
        <fullName>curYtdSales__c</fullName>
        <description>YTD Sales</description>
        <externalId>false</externalId>
        <inlineHelpText>YTD Sales</inlineHelpText>
        <label>YTD Sales</label>
        <precision>18</precision>
        <required>false</required>
        <scale>2</scale>
        <trackFeedHistory>false</trackFeedHistory>
        <trackHistory>false</trackHistory>
        <type>Currency</type>
    </fields>
</CustomObject>

While deploying I am facing below issue.
objects/Account.object (Account.curYtdSales__c) -- Error: Not in package.xml
Please help.
 

Question about the Ant Migration Tool: I'm working on an unpackaged project and wish to deploy a subset of files regularly to another sandbox. To this end I have a package.xml specifying just those components. When I run the build I get a number of "Error: ...:Not in package.xml" messages, one for each metadata file in the deployRoot that isn't listed in package.xml.

 

I want the migration tool to just ignore those and pay attention to the package.xml. Am I missing a command attribute somewhere?