Generate war file from tomcat webapp folder

I have a tomcat server working, and there I have a webapp folder my_web_app.

I didn't deploy the project; I only have that folder of that application (as TOMCAT_DIR/webapps/my_web_app).

What I need is a WAR file. How can I create a .war file from this webapp?

You can create .war file back from your existing folder.

Using this command

cd /to/your/folder/location
jar -cvf my_web_app.war *

Its just like creating a WAR file of your project, you can do it in several ways (from Eclipse, command line, maven).

If you want to do from command line, the command is

jar -cvf my_web_app.war * 

Which means, "compress everything in this directory into a file named my_web_app.war" (c=create, v=verbose, f=file)

There is a way to create war file of your project from eclipse.

First a create an xml file with the following code,

Replace HistoryCheck with your project name.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project name="HistoryCheck" basedir="." default="default">
    <target name="default" depends="buildwar,deploy"></target>
    <target name="buildwar">
        <war basedir="war" destfile="HistoryCheck.war" webxml="war/WEB-INF/web.xml">
            <exclude name="WEB-INF/**" />
            <webinf dir="war/WEB-INF/">
                <include name="**/*.jar" />
            </webinf>
        </war>
    </target>
    <target name="deploy">
        <copy file="HistoryCheck.war" todir="." />
    </target>
</project>

Now, In project explorer right click on that xml file and Run as-> ant build

You can see the war file of your project in your project folder.

Create the war file in a different directory to where the content is otherwise the jar command might try to zip up the file it is creating.

#!/bin/bash

set -euo pipefail

war=app.war
src=contents

# Clean last war build
if [ -e ${war} ]; then
    echo "Removing old war ${war}"
    rm -rf ${war}
fi

# Build war
if [ -d ${src} ]; then
    echo "Found source at ${src}"
    cd ${src}
    jar -cvf ../${war} *
    cd ..
fi

# Show war details
ls -la ${war}