dist not cleared at all when using [hash] in the ouput.path

[Roman K]

When using this, CleanWebpackPlugin does literally nothing.

output: {
        path: path.join(__dirname, 'dist/static/js/[hash]'),
        filename: '[name].js',
    },

Please just let us clear the whole dist folder. I am going to rimraf this for now.

[Matt Carlotta]

I'm experiencing the same issue as mentioned above. I'm also using rimraf as an alternative.

In case anyone else runs into this issue, you can do one of these options:

In package.json

"scripts": {
  "build": "rimraf dist && webpack",
},

or

In webpack.config.js

const rimraf = require("rimraf");

if (process.env.NODE_ENV === "production") {
  rimraf("dist", {}, () => console.log("Removed all previous build assets.")); 
}

[David Norris]

@mattcarlotta Thanks for posting that- I didn't know that package exists.

[Sergey Kuznetsov]

You can use remove-files-webpack-plugin for this.

Config:

new RemovePlugin({
    before: {
        include: [
            './dist'
        ]
    }
})

Note: i'm the creator of this plugin, so, it's a bit of an advertisement.

[Dalton A Mitchell]

I think the issue is just that it doesn't output anything to console by default anymore. I had to set verbose: true and then manually add some files with obvious names like NO_NOT_DELETE.js so that I could verify it was removing things. It also appears that deletion now happens just before the new files are written so in my case it was so fast I didn't actually notice 😄

[Gopinath Prasanna]

I'm experiencing the same issue as mentioned above. I'm also using rimraf as an alternative.

In case anyone else runs into this issue, you can do one of these options:

In package.json

"scripts": {
  "build": "rimraf dist && webpack",
},

or

In webpack.config.js

const rimraf = require("rimraf");

if (process.env.NODE_ENV === "production") {
  rimraf("dist", {}, () => console.log("Removed all previous build assets.")); 
}

Phew!!! I was going insane with this issue. Thanks for the solution mate.

[Krishna Rajendragon]

or

In webpack.config.js

const rimraf = require("rimraf");

if (process.env.NODE_ENV === "production") {
  rimraf("dist", {}, () => console.log("Removed all previous build assets.")); 
}

Great suggestion. One note though: rimraf.sync might be a safer choice here than rimraf. Wouldn't want to risk blowing away files mid build!

[Haritha Rathinakumar]

When using this, CleanWebpackPlugin does literally nothing.

output: {
        path: path.join(__dirname, 'dist/static/js/[hash]'),
        filename: '[name].js',
    },

Please just let us clear the whole dist folder. I am going to rimraf this for now.

I was facing a similar issue. I ended up using cleanOnceBeforeBuildPatterns to override the behavior:

new CleanWebpackPlugin({
    cleanOnceBeforeBuildPatterns: [path.join(__dirname, 'dist')]
}),

Now the dist folder gets removed for me