note: The Ant Migration Tool is retired with Spring ’24. The tool continues to function as-is for future API versions but isn’t updated with new functionality and isn’t supported. If Salesforce adds a new feature that is incompatible with Ant, the Ant Migration Tool won't be updated to support it. To manage metadata changes, switch to Salesforce CLI for a modern, supported developer experience.
To retrieve standard objects and/or custom fields on standard objects, you must name the component in package.xml. The following package.xml file will retrieve a single field EngineeringReqNumber__c, on the Case object, as well as the entire Account object.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Package xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
<types>
<members>Case.EngineeringReqNumber__c</members>
<name>CustomField</name>
</types>
<types>
<members>Account</members>
<name>CustomObject</name>
</types>
<version>68.0</version>
</Package>
note: Custom objects and standard objects should be specified in the same <types> section, the one containing <name>CustomObject</name>.