Maven - how to delete contents of a folder during a clean phase?

Question

in my project I have a folder called war. It is initially empty and it's under version control. The folder gets populated by Maven during its package phase and Eclipse's WST plugin deploys the web app from this folder.

What I want is to delete contents of the war folder during the clean phase but not the folder itself. How do I do that? So far I know how to delete the whole war folder:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-clean-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.4.1</version>
    <configuration>
        <followSymLinks>false</followSymLinks>
        <filesets>
            <fileset>
                <directory>${basedir}/war</directory>
            </fileset>
        </filesets>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

How do I delete only contents of the war folder but not the folder itself? I know that by adding some existing excludes, the folder won't be deleted. But how to generally delete only contents of a folder?

score 77 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 18 '11 at 12:18

77

Add this includes section to your fileset definition

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-clean-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.4.1</version>
            <configuration>
                <filesets>
                    <fileset>
                        <directory>war</directory>
                        <includes>
                            <include>**/*</include>
                        </includes>
                        <followSymlinks>false</followSymlinks>
                    </fileset>
                </filesets>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

answered Apr 18 '11 at 12:18

FrVaBe

47,963
16
124
157

1

For me it only worked after adding the section, as described here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18637626/remove-or-delete-resource-files-from-target-directory-using-pom-file – Noam Manos Apr 19 '15 at 19:09
2

put only ** for also remove the folder (The question ask for delete contents, but who visit this page maybe want delete the folder and the contents). – Manuel Romeiro Jun 01 '18 at 15:31

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 16 '13 at 19:08

6

In my case I needed to delete the "bin" directory, and all it's subdirectory contents. I did this in my parent pom.xml:

<fileset>
    <directory>${basedir}</directory>
      <includes>
        <include>**/bin/**</include>
      </includes> 
      <followSymlinks>false</followSymlinks>
</fileset>

This found any bin directory within my project, and deleted any contents of the bin folder.

answered Dec 16 '13 at 19:08

Jason K

155
2
6

Where does this go? – Derrops Nov 05 '16 at 23:54
2

It's been a while but looking at the post right above mine, it goes in the configuration for the maven-clean-plugin. – Jason K Dec 04 '16 at 16:09

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 11 '16 at 16:48

If you wan to delete more than one directory recursively:

    <plugin>
            <artifactId>maven-clean-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>3.0.0</version>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <id>auto-clean</id>
                    <phase>clean</phase>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>clean</goal>
                    </goals>
                    <configuration>
                        <filesets>
                            <fileset>
                                <directory>${basedir}</directory>
                                <includes>**/dir1/**</includes>
                            </fileset>
                            <fileset>
                                <directory>${basedir}</directory>
                                <includes>**/dir2/**</includes>
                            </fileset>
                            <fileset>
                                <directory>${basedir}</directory>
                                <includes>**/dir3/**</includes>
                            </fileset>
                        </filesets>
                    </configuration>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>

You are missing the element inside . – flob Apr 21 '17 at 10:16 — flob, Apr 21 '17 at 10:16

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 18 '11 at 11:53

2

You will have to use the maven ant plugin & add the task to delete the folder contents only. However why do you need the war file in version control? Every time you build your code base will show that there are some modifications/new files (classes generated) to be checked in. If you are using standard maven conventions the target folder is used for all output.

answered Apr 18 '11 at 11:53

isobar

1,165
8
10

I have configured Eclipse to use the `war` folder (in Deployment assembly) and I want every developer who check-outs the project to have the folder, so the Eclipse configuration is valid. The contents would be of course added to svn:ignore and will be populated by Maven. – janhink Apr 18 '11 at 12:03

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 12 '18 at 10:32

to delete folder from src/main/webapp/folder use :

<configuration>
  <filesets>
    <fileset>
      <directory>src/main/webapp</directory>
      <includes>
        <include>folder/</include>
      </includes>
      <followSymlinks>false</followSymlinks>
    </fileset>
  </filesets>
</configuration>

Maven - how to delete contents of a folder during a clean phase?

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