Use find command but exclude files in two directories

I want to find files that end with _peaks.bed, but exclude files in the tmp and scripts folders.

My command is like this:

 find . -type f \( -name "*_peaks.bed" ! -name "*tmp*" ! -name "*scripts*" \)

But it didn't work. The files in tmp and script folder will still be displayed.

Does anyone have ideas about this?

Here's how you can specify that with find:

find . -type f -name "*_peaks.bed" ! -path "./tmp/*" ! -path "./scripts/*"

Explanation:

• find . - Start find from current working directory (recursively by default)
• -type f - Specify to find that you only want files in the results
• -name "*_peaks.bed" - Look for files with the name ending in _peaks.bed
• ! -path "./tmp/*" - Exclude all results whose path starts with ./tmp/
• ! -path "./scripts/*" - Also exclude all results whose path starts with ./scripts/

Testing the Solution:

$ mkdir a b c d e
$ touch a/1 b/2 c/3 d/4 e/5 e/a e/b
$ find . -type f ! -path "./a/*" ! -path "./b/*"

./d/4
./c/3
./e/a
./e/b
./e/5

You were pretty close, the -name option only considers the basename, where as -path considers the entire path =)

Here is one way you could do it...

find . -type f -name "*_peaks.bed" | egrep -v "^(./tmp/|./scripts/)"

Use

find \( -path "./tmp" -o -path "./scripts" \) -prune -o  -name "*_peaks.bed" -print

or

find \( -path "./tmp" -o -path "./scripts" \) -prune -false -o  -name "*_peaks.bed"

or

find \( -path "./tmp" -path "./scripts" \) ! -prune -o  -name "*_peaks.bed"

The order is important. It evaluates from left to right. Always begin with the path exclusion.

Explanation

Do not use -not (or !) to exclude whole directory. Use -prune. As explained in the manual:

−prune    The primary shall always evaluate as  true;  it
          shall  cause  find  not  to descend the current
          pathname if it is a directory.  If  the  −depth
          primary  is specified, the −prune primary shall
          have no effect.

and in the GNU find manual:

-path pattern
              [...]
              To ignore  a  whole
              directory  tree,  use  -prune rather than checking
              every file in the tree.

Indeed, if you use -not -path "./pathname", find will evaluate the expression for each node under "./pathname".

find expressions are just condition evaluation.

• \( \) - groups operation (you can use -path "./tmp" -prune -o -path "./scripts" -prune -o, but it is more verbose).
• -path "./script" -prune - if -path returns true and is a directory, return true for that directory and do not descend into it.
• -path "./script" ! -prune - it evaluates as (-path "./script") AND (! -prune). It revert the "always true" of prune to always false. It avoids printing "./script" as a match.
• -path "./script" -prune -false - since -prune always returns true, you can follow it with -false to do the same than !.
• -o - OR operator. If no operator is specified between two expressions, it defaults to AND operator.

Hence, \( -path "./tmp" -o -path "./scripts" \) -prune -o -name "*_peaks.bed" -print is expanded to:

[ (-path "./tmp" OR -path "./script") AND -prune ] OR ( -name "*_peaks.bed" AND print )

The print is important here because without it is expanded to:

{ [ (-path "./tmp" OR -path "./script" )  AND -prune ]  OR (-name "*_peaks.bed" ) } AND print

-print is added by find - that is why most of the time, you do not need to add it in you expression. And since -prune returns true, it will print "./script" and "./tmp".

It is not necessary in the others because we switched -prune to always return false.

Hint: You can use find -D opt expr 2>&1 1>/dev/null to see how it is optimized and expanded,
find -D search expr 2>&1 1>/dev/null to see which path is checked.

for me, this solution didn't worked on a command exec with find, don't really know why, so my solution is

find . -type f -path "./a/*" -prune -o -path "./b/*" -prune -o -exec gzip -f -v {} \;

Explanation: same as sampson-chen one with the additions of

-prune - ignore the proceding path of ...

-o - Then if no match print the results, (prune the directories and print the remaining results)

18:12 $ mkdir a b c d e
18:13 $ touch a/1 b/2 c/3 d/4 e/5 e/a e/b
18:13 $ find . -type f -path "./a/*" -prune -o -path "./b/*" -prune -o -exec gzip -f -v {} \;

gzip: . is a directory -- ignored
gzip: ./a is a directory -- ignored
gzip: ./b is a directory -- ignored
gzip: ./c is a directory -- ignored
./c/3:	  0.0% -- replaced with ./c/3.gz
gzip: ./d is a directory -- ignored
./d/4:	  0.0% -- replaced with ./d/4.gz
gzip: ./e is a directory -- ignored
./e/5:	  0.0% -- replaced with ./e/5.gz
./e/a:	  0.0% -- replaced with ./e/a.gz
./e/b:	  0.0% -- replaced with ./e/b.gz

You can try below:

find ./ ! \( -path ./tmp -prune \) ! \( -path ./scripts -prune \) -type f -name '*_peaks.bed'

Try something like

find . \( -type f -name \*_peaks.bed -print \) -or \( -type d -and \( -name tmp -or -name scripts \) -and -prune \)

and don't be too surprised if I got it a bit wrong. If the goal is an exec (instead of print), just substitute it in place.

With these explanations you meet your objective and many others. Just join each part as you want to do.

MODEL

find ./\
 -iname "some_arg" -type f\ # File(s) that you want to find at any hierarchical level.
 ! -iname "some_arg" -type f\ # File(s) NOT to be found on any hirearchic level (exclude).
 ! -path "./file_name"\ # File(s) NOT to be found at this hirearchic level (exclude).
 ! -path "./folder_name/*"\ # Folder(s) NOT to be found on this Hirearchic level (exclude).
 -exec grep -IiFl 'text_content' -- {} \; # Text search in the content of the found file(s) being case insensitive ("-i") and excluding binaries ("-I").

EXAMPLE

find ./\
 -iname "*" -type f\
 ! -iname "*pyc" -type f\
 ! -path "./.gitignore"\
 ! -path "./build/*"\
 ! -path "./__pycache__/*"\
 ! -path "./.vscode/*"\
 ! -path "./.git/*"\
 -exec grep -IiFl 'title="Brazil - Country of the Future",' -- {} \;

Thanks! 珞

[Ref(s).: https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/73938/61742 ]

---

EXTRA:

You can use the commands above together with your favorite editor and analyze the contents of the files found, for example...

vim -p $(find ./\
 -iname "*" -type f\
 ! -iname "*pyc" -type f\
 ! -path "./.gitignore"\
 ! -path "./build/*"\
 ! -path "./__pycache__/*"\
 ! -path "./.vscode/*"\
 ! -path "./.git/*"\
 -exec grep -IiFl 'title="Brazil - Country of the Future",' -- {} \;)