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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.)

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2 Answers 2

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12

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.

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2
  • 1
    This also works with tar if you use the -h flag.
    – Kyle Strand
    Commented Sep 28, 2016 at 1:18
  • (I'm also using the z flag; I'm not sure if that affects it.)
    – Kyle Strand
    Commented Sep 28, 2016 at 1:23
18

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
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8
  • 1
    Excellent advice, thank you. git archive documentation: git-scm.com/docs/git-archive
    – Meglio
    Commented Jul 12, 2015 at 4:53
  • 1
    While using version control is a good idea, this answer does not match the question for the generic case.
    – raimue
    Commented Apr 20, 2016 at 14:16
  • @Raim "This is more an advice than an answer: use Git!" written there since like 4 years, thank you for pointing it out...
    – cYrus
    Commented Apr 20, 2016 at 14:24
  • 1
    If this was not intended as an answer, it should be converted to a comment.
    – raimue
    Commented Apr 20, 2016 at 15:42
  • 1
    @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.
    – cYrus
    Commented Apr 8, 2019 at 14:24

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