Omit files from a source directory during deployment?

I have a build system that spits out a war file + additions with some gunk [non-english help files] optionally removed. It uncompresses the stock WAR into a war-base directory, deletes the appropriate stuff, copies in the additions, then zips it up. The files and directories to be deleted are called out by name in the build script. If that war-base directory gets deleted, it's rebuilt from the source. Like mikeh says, you're going to have to define the "bad" files somehow, whether that be by wildcard, directory path, or individual filename. If it's not in the build script, it'll have to be in some other script or file. You could build a new base war, but then remember that you'll need to record somewhere that this base war is different from the stock source war in this and that way, and perhaps provide an automated way to regenerate it. It seems to me that this is an intrinsic part of this software build, and as such the list of files to delete [or the heuristic that determines the list of files to delete] belongs in the build script. What I like about this method as opposed to the new base war is that to do a new build all someone needs is the stock source war, not some specially-prepared one. I suppose you could break the file deletion [or new-base-war-creation] bit out into a second build script, which could be personalized for this or that developer or context, or disabled altogether by a build flag or somesuch.

You can make it a bit simpler by keeping a list of files to exclude in the custom files that you add. You then just have to keep that file updated along with the other custom files you have. unzip default-app.war copy path/to/custom/files default-app #custom files + exclude.lst zip -r custom.war default-app -x@default-app/exclude.lst exclude.lst would contain a list of the files that you didn't want included in the custom.war that you're creating (don't forget to include exclude.lst itself). I'm not a Windows/zip/war user but here's the gitst: $ ls default.zip my-custom $ unzip default.zip Archive: default.zip creating: default/ creating: default/b/ creating: default/a/ $ mv default custom $ cat my-custom/exclude.lst custom/a/ custom/exclude.lst $ cp -rv my-custom/* custom/ `my-custom/c' -> `custom/c' `my-custom/d' -> `custom/d' `my-custom/exclude.lst' -> `custom/exclude.lst' $ zip -r custom.zip custom -x@custom/exclude.lst adding: custom/ (stored 0%) adding: custom/b/ (stored 0%) adding: custom/d/ (stored 0%) adding: custom/c/ (stored 0%) $ unzip -l custom.zip Archive: custom.zip Length Date Time Name --------- ---------- ----- ---- 0 2010-10-29 17:54 custom/ 0 2010-10-29 17:29 custom/b/ 0 2010-10-29 17:54 custom/d/ 0 2010-10-29 17:54 custom/c/ --------- ------- 0 4 files # custom/a and custom/exclude.lst not present... So you're going to have to have some list somewhere of the files that you don't want in your custom app, might as well keep that list with your custom additions to the default app and just use it as an exclude list when you create the custom app archive. The exclude list will let you use files, directories, wildcard matching... have to check the documentation for whatever version of zip you are using.