Tar: avoid archiving of files larger than certain size

Question

I want to archive files (with tar) which are below 3 MB in size. But I also want to retain the directories in which those files exist. (so I cannot use find command). I just want to avoid the files which are above 3 MB in size. How can this be done?

Solution 1

Simpler than you think:

$ tar cf small-archive.tar /big/tree --exclude-from <(find /big/tree -size +3M)

---

On a semi-related note (relating to your statement that you can't use find) to get a listing of all files (including directories) under a path minus files larger than 3MiB, use:

$ find . -size -3M -o -type d

You could then do:

$ tar cf small-archive.tar --no-recursion --files-from <(find /big/tree -size -3M -o -type d)

But I'd prefer the first one as it's simpler, clearly expresses what you want and will lead to less surprises.

Solution 2

If the filename contains square brackets, in some systems, need to exclude explicitly. For example

$ mkdir test
$ echo "abcde123456" > ./test/a[b].txt
$ echo "1" > ./test/a1.txt
$ ls -la ./test
total 16
drwxrwxr-x 2 user user 4096 Jan 10 16:38 .
drwx------ 4 user user 4096 Jan 10 16:38 ..
-rw-rw-r-- 1 user user    2 Jan 10 16:38 a1.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 user user   12 Jan 10 16:38 a[b].txt
$ tar -zcvpf a.tar.gz ./test
./test/
./test/a[b].txt
./test/a1.txt
$ tar -zcvpf a3.tar.gz ./test --exclude-from <(find ./test -type f -size +3c)
./test/
./test/a[b].txt
./test/a1.txt
$ tar -zcvpf ax.tar.gz ./test --exclude-from <(find ./test -type f -size +3c) --exclude '*\[*'
./test/
./test/a1.txt

Comments

[Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams]

So why can't you use find again?

[Jongosi]

+1 What! A polite, friendly person on SF?!?

[Patoshi パトシ]

+1 same sediments. too many egotistic trolls on SF lately.

[Steve Townsend]

*sentiments :P :)