So, you can use the *
as a wild card for all files when using cp
within context of a directory. Is there a way to copy all files except x
file?
7 Answers
Rsync handles this nicely.
Example copy all: rsync -aP /folder1/* /folder/2
Example copy all with exclusion: rsync -aP --exclude=x /folder1/* /folder2/
The -aP
switch:
a
: Similar tocp -a
, recursive, etc.P
: Shows progress, a nice feature of rsync.
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7And see this answer for a short guide to common rsync exclusion lists. Jun 26, 2012 at 22:27
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1On darwin/MacOS, use
-rP
instead of-aP
if you want to recurse.-a
is for archiving. Not sure if this changed or if it's just different on MacOS.– jpovedaJun 2, 2017 at 23:30 -
1
rsync
does have the option to make it recursive. Example:rsync --recursive -P --exclude=x /folder1/* /folder2/
. (Tested only on Ubuntu)– n1k31t4Apr 9, 2018 at 10:45
In bash
you can use extglob
:
$ shopt -s extglob # to enable extglob
$ cp !(b*) new_dir/
where !(b*)
exclude all b*
files.
You can later disable extglob
with
$ shopt -u extglob
-
-
Unfortunately I don't. Seems like
find
is the only way intcsh
:find . -maxdepth 1 ! -name "exclude*" -exec cp -t destination {} \+
– rushJun 27, 2012 at 5:25
This isn't a feature of cp
, it's a feature of your shell (it expands the *
to mean all non-dot files), so the answer depends on which shell you're using. For example, zsh
supports this syntax:
$ cp ^x /path/to/destination
Where ^x
means "all files except x
"
You can also combine selection and de-selection patterns, e.g. to copy all wav files except those containing xyz, you can use:
cp *.wav~*xyz*
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1
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@hydroparadise I don't know much about bash, but this answer seems to cover it Jun 26, 2012 at 20:00
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Could also be done in plain old (portable/compatible) bourne shell in a variety of ways with standard tools in a lot less elegant ways than using advanced shell globbing or commands with built-in-exclusion options.
If there are not too many files (and not with names including spaces and/or linebreaks), this could be a way:
cp `ls | egrep -v '^excludename$'` destdir/.
Sure, bash
and GNU tools are great and powerful, but they're still not always available. If you intend to put it in a portable script, I would recommend find
as in the comment by Rush.
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2I find that the last part of your answer just distracts from the topic at hand. Besides, "Unix" isn't the gold standard anymore (if it ever were). It just isn't that relevant if something is "Unix" or not anymore, despite the title of this site being "Unix and Linux". Jun 27, 2012 at 8:44
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2OK. I moved the comment to here instead: Unix is not GNU. I agree that the "unixness" of things is not very interesting, but I still believe in portability and knowing a bit about your history. Jun 27, 2012 at 8:55
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If you want to copy everything in a folder (including subfolders) to a particular sub-directory:
cp -R $(ls | grep -v '^subdir$') subdir/
Works with sh, bash, zsh (at least).
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2
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2If you use that command "cp -R * subdir/", bash/zsh tried to copy 'subdir' recurvively. You end up with an error: "name too long (not copied)". Dec 23, 2015 at 10:48
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2Good point. Your suggestion attempts to avoid the warning from
cp
(not frombash
/sh
), "cp: cannot copy a directory, ‘subdir’, into itself, ‘subdir/subdir’
". The copy does complete correctly, though. Unfortunately your variant breaks with any filename containing a space or shell-sensitive punctuation. See unix.stackexchange.com/q/128985/135943– roaimaDec 23, 2015 at 11:41
The best and simple way is using find
. Go to the source directory. Then use the following commands.
find . ! -name "*.log" | xargs -i cp -r {} ~/destination_dir
This copies all files except "*.log" files.
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Note that find recursively searches all subdirectories by default, so using
cp -r
is causing to recurse twice on each file. Either usefind
with-maxdepth 0
or remove-r
from thecp
. Jul 23, 2021 at 8:14
extglob
is the best way so far I guess.
Another way is using
cp $(ls --ignore=x) subdir/
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1This will break given any form of special characters whatsoever in the filenames. (Spaces, newlines,
$
, etc.) Never parse the output ofls
. unix.stackexchange.com/q/128985/135943– WildcardDec 4, 2015 at 6:14