How to exclude a folder by name recursively when making a tar archive?

Question

I know it is possible to exclude a particular folder by a command like this:

tar --exclude='/srv/www/project/node_modules' -zcvf /backup/project.tgz .

My question how to exclude any folder named node_modules anywhere within the entire /srv/www directory, to exclude it and exclude all folders under it?

Solution

To exclude the directory named node_modules wherever it is located under /srv/www/ even if there are multiple copies of it under different sub-directories, just do not specify a path in the --exclude part and use it like this:

tar -zcvf /backup/project.tar.gz --exclude "node_modules" /srv/www/

This will exclude all directories and files named exactly node_modules and all sub-directories and files under them anywhere in /srv/www/.

Comments

[Raffa]

If what you mean is you want to exclude all directories that start with node_modules in their names like node_modules123 and node_modules_new etc. then append a * to the excluded directory name and use the command like so tar -zcvf /backup/project.tar.gz --exclude "/srv/www/project/node_modules*" /srv/www/ and please edit your question and make it clear. Thank you

[W.M.]

@Raffa, I have just re-edited my question and made it clearer.