Remove or delete resource files from target directory using pom file - maven

Question

I have two profiles in pom.xml, and I have some resource files which I have added into target resource directory: ${project.build.outputDirectory}/resources during execution of the first profile. What I need to do is remove those resource files during execution of the second profile.
Is there any way to remove or delete existing files from target directory?

Answer 1

I do agree with Matthew's observations, but I got the impression that the original poster was asking how to automate execution of clean during (normal) "execution" of a profile.
You can define a plugin execution for the Maven Clean Plugin. It is normally only bound to clean, but by defining a plugin execution you can bind clean:clean (that is the clean goal of the clean plugin) to whichever lifecycle phase you want. The documentation of the Maven Clean Plugin has an example of how to do this. The documentation also has an example of deleting additional files. Merged the two looks like this:
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-clean-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.5</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>auto-clean</id>
<phase>initialize</phase>
<goals>
<goal>clean</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<filesets>
<fileset>
<directory>some/relative/path</directory>
</fileset>
</filesets>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>

Answer 2

I got the solution..!!
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.7</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<phase>test</phase>
<goals>
<goal>run</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<tasks>
<delete>
<fileset dir="${project.build.outputDirectory}/resources" includes="*.xml" />
</delete>
</tasks>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
for reference - http://maven.apache.org/guides/mini/guide-building-for-different-environments.html

Answer 3

mvn clean will remove the target directory (and therefore all the files in it). If you want to remove only certain files from the target directory, a combination of:
excludeDefaultDirectories to stop it from deleting the whole directory, and
filesets to tell it what to delete
ref: http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-clean-plugin/clean-mojo.html

Answer 4

Solution with Apache Maven AntRun Plugin 1.8:
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.8</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<phase>initialize</phase>
<goals>
<goal>run</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<target>
<delete
dir="${project.build.outputDirectory}/resources"
includeemptydirs="true"/>
</target>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>

Answer 5

I needed only a couple of files deleted from the output directory, the following worked fine for me.
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.8</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<phase>compile</phase>
<goals>
<goal>run</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<tasks>
<delete file="${project.build.outputDirectory}/appContextLocal.xml" />
<delete
file="${project.build.outputDirectory}/appContextServer.xml" />
</tasks>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
I also figured that you can run any ant commands here replace what ever task you need in between the <tasks> .... </tasks> and it will work.
List of ant tasks that you can perform are here
Ref: http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-antrun-plugin/usage.html

Answer 6

thanks to above answers. finally i came to something like:
if you want to just delete some directories in target folder, you have to create some construct like this.
this for instance deletes just all contents of folders:
target/unpack
gen-external-apklibs
excludeDefaultDirectories allows to not delete complete target folder.
i used it to clean up target folder before lint analysis.
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-clean-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.6</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<id>Deleting all unnecessary files before lint analysis</id>
<phase>verify</phase>
<goals>
<goal>clean</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
<configuration>
<excludeDefaultDirectories>true</excludeDefaultDirectories>
<filesets>
<fileset>
<directory>target/unpack</directory>
<followSymlinks>false</followSymlinks>
<excludes>
<exclude>*</exclude>
</excludes>
</fileset>
<fileset>
<directory>gen-external-apklibs</directory>
<followSymlinks>false</followSymlinks>
<excludes>
<exclude>*</exclude>
</excludes>
</fileset>
</filesets>
<verbose>true</verbose>
</configuration>
</plugin>