Command Line – Zip Archive Without Including Parent Directory

command linecompressionzip

I want to zip many folders in a directory tree like so 

V-
 something.txt
 folder
 folder
 g.jpg
 h.jar

When I try to zip it, it ends creating a zip archive with the v folder instead of the contents of it (the sub directories and files)

How can I avoid this?

Best Answer

So if I understand correctly, you are trying to archive the files & folders in a particular folder but without including the root folder.

Example: 

/test/test.txt
/test/test2.txt

where test.txt and test2.txt would be stored in the zip, but not /test/

You could cd into the /test/ directory then run something like,

zip -r filename.zip ./*

Which would create an archive in the same folder named filename.zip. Or if running it from outside the folder you could run,

zip -r test.zip test/*

The /* is the part that includes only the contents of the folder, instead of the entire folder.

Edit: OP wanted multiple zips, solution ended up being a bit of a hack, I am curious as to whether there is a better way of doing this. 

for d in */ ; do base=$(basename "$d") ; cd $base ; zip -r $base * ; mv "${base}.zip" .. ; cd .. ; done;
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