Exclude a subpath in find command

Question

I have the following find command:

find /mnt/F_11 -type f \( -iname '*.xls' -o -iname '*.xlsx' /)

How would I find all items in /mnt/F_11 but not in /mnt/f_11/DONOTENTER/?

In other words, I would want it to search:

YES /mnt/F_11
YES /mnt/F_11/somepath/
YES /mnt/F_11/somepath/other/
NO  /mtn/F_11/DONOTENTER/

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 18 '15 at 20:46

3

Use -prune to avoid recursing down branches you don't want to follow.

find /mnt/F_11 -name DONOTENTER -prune -o \
     -type f \( -iname '*.xls' -o -iname '*.xlsx' \) -print

Note the explicit -print at the end -- this is important, as otherwise the implicit print action covers both branches.

edited Sep 18 '15 at 20:46

David542

answered Sep 18 '15 at 20:27

Charles Duffy

would that be faster than doing `-not -path /mnt/F_11/DONOTENTER*` ? – David542 Sep 18 '15 at 20:37
1

Yes, because `-prune` stops recursion down a path, whereas the other approach given would test contents within that subtree. – Charles Duffy Sep 18 '15 at 20:39

1 Answers1