Zip – How to Zip a File Without Including the Parent Directory

zip

I have a folder that contains multiple files

folder

artifact1.app

artifact2.ext2

artifact3.ext3

…

My goal is to zip the file from outside this folder (so without using cd command) without including the folder dir.

zip -r ./folder/artifact.zip ./folder/artifact1.app

This command includes the folder dir in the final zip. Any hints?

Best Answer

If you want to store all the files in folder under their name without a directory indication, you can use the -j option.

zip -j folder/artifact.zip folder/artifact1.app folder/artifact2.ext2 folder/artifact3.ext3

zip -j folder/{artifact.zip,artifact1.app,artifact2.ext2,artifact3.ext3}

If you have files in subdirectories, they won't have any directory component in the archive either, e.g. folder/subdir/foo will be stored in the archive as foo.

But it would probably be easier to change to the directory. It's almost exactly the same amount of typing as the brace method aboe. If you do that, if you include files in subdirectories, they'll have their relative path from the directory you changed into, e.g. folder/subdir/foo will be stored as subdir/foo.

(cd folder && zip artifact.zip artifact1.app artifact2.ext2 artifact3.ext3)

For interactive use, you lose shell completion this way, because the shell doesn't realize that you'll be in a different directory when you run the zip command. To remedy that, issue the cd command separately. To easily go back to the previous directory, you can use pushd and popd.

pushd folder
zip artifact.zip artifact1.app artifact2.ext2 artifact3.ext3
popd

If you want full control over the paths stored in a zip file, you can create a forest of symbolic links. Unless instructed otherwise, zip doesn't store symbolic links.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu Compression – Zip Everything in Current Directory

Install zip and use

zip -r foo.zip .

You can use the flags -0 (none) to -9 (best) to change compressionrate

Excluding files can be done via the -x flag. From the man-page:

-x files
--exclude files
          Explicitly exclude the specified files, as in:

                 zip -r foo foo -x \*.o

          which  will  include the contents of foo in foo.zip while excluding all the files that end in .o.  The backslash avoids the shell filename substitution, so that the name matching
          is performed by zip at all directory levels.

          Also possible:

                 zip -r foo foo -x@exclude.lst

          which will include the contents of foo in foo.zip while excluding all the files that match the patterns in the file exclude.lst.

          The long option forms of the above are

                 zip -r foo foo --exclude \*.o

          and

                 zip -r foo foo --exclude @exclude.lst

          Multiple patterns can be specified, as in:

                 zip -r foo foo -x \*.o \*.c

          If there is no space between -x and the pattern, just one value is assumed (no list):

                 zip -r foo foo -x\*.o

          See -i for more on include and exclude.

Directory – Zip All Files and Subfolders Without Parent Directory

zip stores paths relative to the current directory (when it is invoked), so you need to change that:

(cd folder; zip -r ../package.zip .)

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu Compression – Zip Everything in Current Directory

Directory – Zip All Files and Subfolders Without Parent Directory

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