How to remove a a specific directory from the Maven's target directory at the end of the build? - maven

Question

I have a task to unpack all the jars mentioned in the pom.xml and then jar the unpacked content into one single jar. I am able to do this using the unpack-dependency goal of the dependency plugin and the jar plugin.
However, after i generate the new jar, I want to delete the folder that was created after unpacking. I am using the following code snippet in my pom.xml(Please read the comments above each plugin).
<build>
<plugins>
<!-- This part of the code is used to unpack all the dependencies mentioned in my pom.xml -->
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.10</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>unpack-dependencies</id>
<phase>package</phase>
<goals>
<goal>unpack-dependencies</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<includes>**/*.class</includes>
<outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/alternateLocation</outputDirectory>
<overWriteReleases>false</overWriteReleases>
<overWriteSnapshots>true</overWriteSnapshots>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
<!-- This part of the code is used for creating a jar with all the contents of the "alternateLocation" directory above -->
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.4</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<phase>package</phase>
<goals>
<goal>jar</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<classesDirectory>${project.build.directory}/alternateLocation</classesDirectory>
<outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}</outputDirectory>
<finalName>abc</finalName>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
<!-- I am using this part of the code to delete the "alternateLocation" after everything is done, but it deletes the target directory instead -->
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-clean-plugin</artifactId>
<version>3.0.0</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>auto-clean</id>
<phase>install</phase>
<goals>
<goal>clean</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<filesets>
<fileset>
<directory>${project.build.directory}/alternateLocation</directory>
</fileset>
</filesets>
<excludeDefaultDirectories>${project.build.directory}</excludeDefaultDirectories>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
The clean plugin is basically deleting the target directory by default.
So how can I delete the "alternateLocation" folder from the target directory at the end of the build. (I guess you can do it using the maven-antrun-plugin but i don't want to use this plugin.).

Answer 1

You can solved this by using the maven-assembly-plugin via the predefined descriptor jar-with-dependencies which can be done by the following:
<project>
[...]
<build>
[...]
<plugins>
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.6</version>
<configuration>
<descriptorRefs>
<descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
</descriptorRefs>
</configuration>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>make-assembly</id>
<phase>package</phase>
<goals>
<goal>single</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
[...]
</project>
Than you don't need supplemental configuration.