Docker compose with name other than dockerfile

Question

I have used docker to create CLI interfaces where I test my code. These are named reasonably as:

proj_root/.../docks/foo.dockerfile
proj_root/.../docks/bar.dockerfile

Because there is more than one dock involved, the top level "Dockerfile" at the project root is unreasonable. Although I can't copy ancestor directories when building in docker, I can clone my entire repo.

So my project architecture works for me.

---

Next, I look up docker-compose because I need to match my docker cards up against a postgres db and expose some ports.

However, docker-compose seems to be anchored to the hard-coded '"Dockerfile" in the current working directory' user concept from the perspective of the command line interface.

But! I see the error message implies the tool is capable of looking for an arbitrarily named dockerfile:

ERROR: Cannot locate specified Dockerfile: Dockerfile

The question is: how do I set docker-compose off looking for foo.dockerfile rather than ./Dockerfile?

Answer 1

In your docker-compose, under the service:

services:
  serviceA:
    build: 
      context: <folder of your project>
      dockerfile: <path and name to your Dockerfile>

Answer 2

As mentioned in the documentation of docker-compose.yml, you can overwrite the Dockerfile filename within the build properties of your docker-compose services.

For example:

version: 3
services:
  foo:
    image: user/foo
    build:
      context: .../docks
      dockerfile: foo.Dockerfile
  bar:
    image: user/bar
    build:
      context: .../docks
      dockerfile: bar.Dockerfile