Linux: Specifying top level-directory when creating zip archive

linux unix zip path archiving

5,797

Solution 1

Maybe this already occurred to you, but why not just use a sym link rather than copy everything?

ln -s project-name project-name-version

then use zip -r through the sym link (zip will dereference sym links by default)? When you're done you can simply rm the sym link. Perhaps it's not the most elegant solution, but I don't know an obvious way to do it through zip directly.

Solution 2

This is more an advice than an answer: use Git!

If you setup a Git repository for your project, the whole thing become quite straightforward:

git archive HEAD --prefix=project-name-version/ \
    --format=zip -o project-name-version.zip

5,797

leden

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

leden over 1 year
I have project with the usual directory structure (src/, bin/, ...), i.e
```
project-name/
|-- bin
|-- lib
|-- src
`-- Makefile
```
And would like to create an archive with the following directory structure:
```
project-name-version/
|-- bin
|-- lib
|-- src
`-- Makefile
```
Is there a neat way to do this, which avoids creating a temporary directory project-name/ elsewhere, then copying the files inside a finally calling zip -r ... on that temporary directory?

(I am basically looking for some kind of path prefix or relative path option.)
Meglio almost 9 years

Excellent advice, thank you. git archive documentation: git-scm.com/docs/git-archive
raimue about 8 years

While using version control is a good idea, this answer does not match the question for the generic case.
cYrus about 8 years

@Raim "This is more an advice than an answer: use Git!" written there since like 4 years, thank you for pointing it out...
raimue about 8 years

If this was not intended as an answer, it should be converted to a comment.
Kyle Strand over 7 years

This also works with tar if you use the -h flag.
Kyle Strand over 7 years

(I'm also using the z flag; I'm not sure if that affects it.)
Gregor about 5 years

I think that the downside of using git archive is that files like .gitignore go into the created archive, as well. Does anybody know a remedy?
cYrus about 5 years

@Gregor I think that's a desirable behavior as such files are actually part of the project, anyway you can use Git attributes, e.g., create a file named .gitattributes containing .git* export-ignore.
Gregor about 5 years

Thank you, @cYrus, good solution. My goal was to make source code publicly available, in which case you do not want those files included.
user almost 4 years

Does this recursively include initialized submodules?