In Unix, to delete all the files in a directory except the ones that start with the letter "a", do the following:
rm [!a]*
But let's say there are many files, and you want to delete everything except a file called "my_file". Use grep's inverse matching capability here:
rm $(ls * | grep -v my_file)
Of course if there are other files with "my_file" as part of their filename, then those won't be deleted either. The following will ensure that this doesn't happen:
rm $(ls * | grep -v '^my_file$')
5 comments:
Probably naive question, but why are you using $() instead of `` ?
In bash, it's more readable and considered better practice to use $() instead of ``. IIRC, sh doesn't have $(), and scripts may need to use `` for compatibility.
I have classify turned on by default, and there were several directories, so I did this:
rm -rf $(ls -d --file-type * | grep -v some_file_name)
thanks for the hint.
rm !(my_file)
also works, see man bash, pattern matching
Learn the find command.
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