External Exclusion List for File Harvesting in Files Element

[SujalBirari]

Question

Hi @robmen - thanks for your support in the Wix Toolset Discussions, its been really helpful.

I had a couple of questions regarding the Files element and its Exclude child element used for file harvesting:

1. External Exclusion List Support
When excluding multiple files from a folder during harvesting, we currently need to specify each file individually using multiple Exclude tags. In cases where we have 20–30 files to exclude, this can become quite verbose.
Is there currently a feature or workaround that allows referencing an external file (e.g., an XML or text file) containing the list of files to exclude, which Wix could then process internally to generate the necessary exclusions?

2. Folder Comparison Utility for Exclusion Generation
As an extension to the first question, is there any utility or tool that can compare two folders and generate a delta list (i.e., files present in one folder but not the other) which could then be used to populate an exclusion list automatically?

I understand that the Files element was introduced to simplify file harvesting, and it has indeed made things more easier. However, for scenarios involving large exclusion lists, such features or utilities could further enhance usability.

Your any insights or suggestions would be very helpful.

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