shell command to copy all files except a few files

Question

I want to copy all files to a directory except a few files. Is there any way to specify that information in the cp command?

Directory structure -

Dir
     Dir 1
     Dir 2 -> Dir 2.1 -> file

I want to copy the entire dir directory except file.

Answer 1

Maybe rsync

rsync -av --exclude='path1/to/exclude' --exclude='path2/to/exclude' source destination