Library manifest delete folder

Question

I use a library in my component with these folders:

/library/wbs/classes
/library/wbs/helpers
/library/wbs/js
/library/wbs/css
/library/wbs/libraries

And I want to use this manifest:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<extension type="library" method="upgrade" version="3.0">
    <name>Webemus Framework Library</name>
    <author>Webemus</author>
    <creationDate>May 2022</creationDate>
    <copyright>Copyright Webemus(C) 2022</copyright>
    <license>GNU General Public License version 2 or later; see LICENSE.txt</license>
    <authorEmail>[email protected]</authorEmail>
    <authorUrl>webemus.com</authorUrl>
    <version>3.18</version>
    <description>Webemus Framework Library</description>
    <libraryname>wbs</libraryname>
    <files>      
        <folder>classes</folder>
        <folder>helpers</folder>                     
    </files>
</extension>

NOTE that I only include folder "classes" and "helpers" in the manifest.

This is because mostly I only change these two folders in each version, I don't need to copy the rest of the files and specially because the other folders never change and are very heavy on files and size.

When I install the library, it will delete the other folders and only leaving "classes" and "helpers".

I would like the other folder to remain in the server without being touched.

Can that be done?

Answer 1

No, there is no sensible way around this. Currently, libraries are completely uninstalled when updating. It doesn't really make much sense (this doesn't happen with other extension) and should ultimately be solved in core. For reference, this issue has been solved in the past, but clearly it wasn't a complete fix. What you could do is open an issue on the issue tracker or submit a patch yourself. If accepted, this should be done in the next major version (5.0) since this would require library developers to start handling the removal of old files by themselves.