Bash: copy all files of a certain type excluding few

Question

I'm new to bash scripting. The requirement is similar to BASH copy all files except one. I'm trying to copy all files that starts with file and exclude one file that starts with file~ (backup file). This is what I hvae tried so far with bash.

path1="/home/dir1/file*" ( I know this * doesn't work - wildcards)
file_to_exclude="/home/dir1/file~*"
dest=/var/dest

count=`ls -l "$path1" 2>/dev/null | wc -l`
if [ $count !=0 ]
then
    cp -p !$file_to_exclude $path1 $dest (Not sure if this is the way to exclude backup file)
fi

Could anyone please help me how to resolve this?

how about `cp -p /home/dir1/file[^~]* $dest` ? – Abdulrahman Alsoghayer Apr 06 '16 at 15:52 — Abdulrahman Alsoghayer, Apr 06 '16 at 15:52

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 06 '16 at 15:51

3

use find

find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -size +0 ! -name *~* -exec cp {} dest \;

instead of line count this checks size being nonzero.

dest is the destination directory.

answered Apr 06 '16 at 15:51

karakfa

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 06 '16 at 15:46

0

Try something like this:

file_to_exclude="some_pattern"
all_files=`ls /home/dir1/file*`
for file in $all_files; do
    if [ "$file" != "$file_to_exclude" ]; then
        cp $file /some/path
    fi
done

answered Apr 06 '16 at 15:46

alnet

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yes. it is. do you have other suggestion how to get list of files? – alnet Apr 06 '16 at 15:49
`all_files=(*)`. Now you have a bash array and don't have to worry about whitespace issues until you expand each member. – Kevin M Granger Apr 06 '16 at 15:52

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 06 '16 at 16:20

0

I don't see a reason for complication, it could be as simple as:

cp -p /home/dir1/file[^~]* /var/dest/

Or, if you only want files with extensions

cp -p /home/dir1/file[^~]*.* /var/dest/

answered Apr 06 '16 at 16:20

Abdulrahman Alsoghayer

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Bash: copy all files of a certain type excluding few

3 Answers3