How do I include an empty directory in a maven assembly?

Question

In what must be a common occurence, I need to include an empty directory in an assembly. In my case it is logs/.

I've tried different variations in the assembly descriptor like:

<fileSet>   <directory>${basedir}/target</directory>   <includes>     <include>doesntexist</include>   </includes>   <outputDirectory>/logs</outputDirectory>   <fileMode>0644</fileMode> </fileSet> 

and the directory just gets pruned.

I tried to exclude as well, but that still included lots of stuff:

<fileSet>   <directory>${basedir}/target</directory>   <excludes>     <exclude>*</exclude>   </excludes>   <outputDirectory>/logs</outputDirectory>   <fileMode>0644</fileMode> </fileSet> 

Answer 1

This always works for me:

<fileSets>   <fileSet>     <directory>.</directory>     <outputDirectory>logs</outputDirectory>     <excludes>       <exclude>*/**</exclude>     </excludes>   </fileSet> </fileSets> 

Answer 2

Courtesy, this SO answer and with some trial and error, the following one seems to work for me...

<fileSet>   <directory>src/main/assembly</directory>   <outputDirectory>/logs</outputDirectory>   <excludes>     <exclude>*</exclude>   </excludes> </fileSet> 

The key seems to be to ensure that <directory> tag specifies a valid/existing folder, which does not have any subfolders.