Support empty directory creation

I don't understand why we can't create empty directories. It seems like one of the most obvious reasons for having an archetype. I hate creating src/main/java/com/foo everytime I start a new project.

Here you go. A very simple patch to fix this.

Define empty directories by suffixing the path with a slash '/'.

Like so:
<sources>
<source>src/main/java/foo/bar/baz</source>
</sources>

Works in all the <sources>, <testSources>, <resources> elements. So creating empty dirs just about anywhere can be done within the <resources>-element.

Argh. Typo in the example, should be:

Like so:
<sources>
<source>src/main/java/foo/bar/baz/</source>
</sources>

(Note the forward slash at the end)

Can this not be achieved without mandating a trailing slash? I can see this being rather error prone (as demonstrated already ).

Disclaimer: "I ain't no maven expert, or committer for that matter"

But that patch took about 15 minutes. So one without the slashes shouldn't be too difficult.

However, I personally prefer this way, as now you are explicitly declaring that the "resource" should be an empty directory. Without the trailing slash, a situation where there is a typo in eg. a <source>-element value would create an empty directory instead of complaining that the source file resource can't be found.

Note that this issue is still relevant in 2.0-alpha-2: empty directory filesets are not created when generating an archetype.

Fixed since revision 688113

ok so since the revision 688113 i can effectively add a fileset over an empty directory and archetype generates it.
But how can i specify that my empties directorie have to be packaged ?

 
<fileSet packaged="true" encoding="UTF-8">
      <directory>src/main/java/actions</directory>
      <includes>
        <include>**/*</include>
      </includes>
</fileSet>

with package : com.example

i would like to have
src -> main -> java -> com -> example -> actions
and not
src -> main -> java -> actions -> com -> example

is there a way to do this ?

Is this bug truly fixed?

"At this point one can only specify individual files to be created but not empty directories."
http://maven.apache.org/guides/mini/guide-creating-archetypes.html

I can't get this to work. I wonder if it is an OS thing. I'm using Windows.

Does anyone know of an archetype "in the wild" that is taking advantage of this feature? I'd like to see what it does when I run it on my box.

Couldn't get this to work on Ubuntu either. It looks like the provided fix did NOT solve the problem. Indeed, you can do what Marc Pasteur suggested, however the result is far from the desired one. There should be a way to specify empty dirs in the archetype.xml file... Moreover it almost feels like this functionality is essential for an archetyping tool - could you review the problem once again, please?.

EDIT: I found a workaround to the problem mentioned by Marc Pasteur - see http://marekdec.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/how-to-get-maven-archetype-to-generate-empty-directories/

Just a comment that I've filed ARCHETYPE-289 to try to get them to fix this.

> Greg Wittel wrote:
> Just a comment that I've filed ARCHETYPE-289 to try to get them to fix this.

The workaround that Marek posted works: http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/ARCHETYPE-57?focusedCommentId=208054&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels%3Acomment-tabpanel#action_208054

I just use archetype-metadata.xml now, and don't use archetype.xml at all. Not sure why both exist.
"How metadata on an archetype is stored?" http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-archetype-plugin/specification/archetype-metadata.html

yes, I think the org.codehaus.mojo.archetypes archetypes are making use of this.

>> The workaround that Marek posted work

Sort of. I should clarify in 289 – it requires you to individually list each directory. It would be nice if a fileset pattern could be applied. Will update 289.