Excluding multiple directories & files using FIND command

[Dave Geiger]

Hi All

I am trying to use the find command and exclude multiple directories and files.

So can you suggest me the syntax of excluding multiple directories and files using the find command

help is appreciated.

Thanks
Dave

[Rodney Hills]

find / ! \( -path "/dev/*" -path "/tmp/*" \) -print

will walk through entire file system except for /dev and /tmp

HTH

-- Rod Hills

[Rodney Hills]

To exclude specific file names

find / ! \( -name "core" -name "*.c" \) -print

This will exclude files named "core" or ending with .c.

HTH

-- Rod Hills

[Senthil Prabu.S_1]

Hello Dave,
you can use the find command with following option to exclude directories;

find . -name $DIRNAME -prune -o -print

where, $DIRNAME is the name of the directory to be excluded.

HTH,

Prabu.S

[Arunvijai_4]

To Exclude DIR1, DIR2 and DIR3 from list simply use:

find / -type d \( -name DIR1 -o -name DIR2 -o -name DIR3 \) -prune -o
-type d -print

-Arun

[Steve Post]

Here's another obvious way. Find all the stuff, then remove the pieces you want to exclude.

I want to backup filesystems /a /b and /d.
I want to skip filesystem /c, and directories: /a/skip1, /b/notthis.

find /a /b /d -print | grep -Ev "^\/a\/skip1|^\/b\/notthis" > answer.txt

Or....
find /a /b /d -print > bigfile
cat bigfile | grep -Ev "^\/a\/skip1|^\/b\/notthis" > answer.txt

Or...
find / -print > bigfile
cat bigfile | grep -Ev "^\/c|...blah blah.."

^ ==== anchor search to beginning of string.
\/ === really search for a forward slash.
| ==== the OR command.