How can I selectively copy files from one directory to another directory?

Question

On Linux, how do I selectively copy most – but not all – files from a directory (dir1) to another directory (dir2)?

I do not want to copy *.c and *.txt files to dir2.

The cp man page online cannot help me.

Solution 1

In addition to eboix's find command (which as it stands breaks on whitespace, I'll put a safer way or two at the end), you can use bash's extglob feature:

# turn extglob on
shopt -s extglob 
# move everything but the files matching the pattern
mv dir1/!(*.c) -t dir2
# If you want to exclude more patterns, add a pipe between them:
mv dir1/!(*.c|*.txt) -t dir2

See the bash man page for more you can do with extglob. Note that this is not recursive and so will only move files in dir1 directly, not subdirectories. The find method is recursive.

---

Safer find commands:

find dir1 ! -name '*.c' -print0 | xargs -0 mv -t dir2
find dir1 ! -name '*.c' -exec mv -t dir2 {} +

For more patterns, just add more ! -name statements:

find dir1 ! -name '*.c' ! -name '*.txt' -print0 | xargs -0 mv -t dir2
find dir1 ! -name '*.c' ! -name '*.txt' -exec mv -t dir2 {} +

Solution 2

Try this:

find ./ ! -name '*.c' | xargs -i cp {} dest_dir

Comments

[Kevin]

This will break on whitespace, you should add -print0 / -0 or use -exec.

[Admin]

Or don't use filenames with embedded blanks or special characters (frankly, a good idea!)

[Gerald Gonzales]

thanks, what if I want to avoid two or more files ? for example, '.c' or '.txt' ?

[Kevin]

@user1002288 You add more ! -name ... statements, I've updated my answer to show this.