copy all files that have no extension

Question

We can copy some file by extensions like this:

cp *.txt ../new/

but how can I copy all files that have no extension?

Solution 1

The answer from @ubaid-ashraf is almost there. The way to specify file with no extension, in ksh would be:

cp -- !(*.*) /new/path/

so that any file with dot in file name is skipped.

For that to work in bash, you need to enable the extglob option (shopt -s extglob) and the kshglob option in zsh (set -o kshglob).

Solution 2

You can do something like:

cp -- !(*.txt) /path/to/directory

The above code will copy all the files without .txt extension. You can also give multiple extension via pipe character.

For example:

cp -- !(*.txt|*.c|*.py) /path/to/directory

Solution 3

You can use find+grep to get only files that have no extension

   find . -maxdepth 1 -type f | sed 's/^\.\///' | grep -v "\."

So your copy command will be

   cp ` find . -maxdepth 1 -type f | sed 's/^\.\///' | grep -v "\." ` destination_folder

Comments

[amisax]

the problem with this (and @ubaid-ashraf 's solution) is that it will also move directories , since most directories will not have any extensions. My solution would ensure that there are no directories moved

[Jerb]

The pattern *.* matches my.file.txt, so presumably the file would not be copied.

[Hossein Nasr]

why do you use -- after cp? i do that without -- and it works. btw, what is usage of --?

[Abel Cheung]

@hoosssein Double dash prevents anything that follows to be treated as command line options. If there are odd file names like "-r" or "-s", double dash can help guarding against potential disaster.