Cannot generate CProject without deleting source directory contents?

This issue report is based on using this JAR.

Suppose I have a source directory with some input PDFs:

$ tree
.
└── input
    ├── a.pdf
    └── b.pdf

1 directory, 2 files

and I want to generate a CProject called "output" from that source directory, to end up with:

$ tree
.
├── input
│   ├── a.pdf
│   └── b.pdf
└── output
    ├── a
    │   └── fulltext.pdf
    └── b
        └── fulltext.pdf

4 directories, 4 files

I would expect the following command to achieve it:

java -jar ~/.local/bin/norma-0.5.0-SNAPSHOT-jar-with-dependencies.jar --project input --fileFilter '.*/(.*).pdf' --makeProject '../output/(\1)/fulltext.pdf'

However, this instead gives:

$ tree
.
├── input
├── output
│   ├── a
│   │   └── fulltext.pdf
│   └── b
│       └── fulltext.pdf
└── target
    └── log.xml

5 directories, 3 files

The deletion of the source directory's contents certainly violates the principle of least surprise.

According to a conversation I had with @petermr just now, this is a known issue. His workaround, which feels cumbersome to me, is to cp -a the source directory to the target directory, and then to invoke norma on the target directory alone:

java -jar ~/.local/bin/norma-0.5.0-SNAPSHOT-jar-with-dependencies.jar --project output --fileFilter '.*/(.*).pdf' --makeProject '(\1)/fulltext.pdf'

[petermr]

The client is used to the current interface and does not require any change. Pleaes document the system as it is rather than as you would like it to be

@petermr wrote:

The client is used to the current interface and does not require any change.

Straw man 😞

This is a norma issue. I have not at any point stated that it is specific to any particular ContentMine client.

Pleaes document the system as it is rather than as you would like it to be

That is not how bug reports or feature requests work 😉