Shell Programming and Scripting

Note that ksh and bash also support extended globbing.
The syntax is different from the one Chubler_XL mentioned;
zsh actually supports both (see the ksh_glob option).
With bash (adding archive to the exclude list for obvious reasons):

Code:

shopt -s extglob
mv -v -- !(@(README.txt|archive)) archive

[drop the -v switch, if your mv implementation doesn't support it]
The syntax above originates from the ksh, where it's enabled by default.

PS: The code won't work correctly when there are no matching files.

I seem to recall *cp -r uses cpio, so:

Code:

find ... | grep -v 'unwanted' | cpio -i... | ( cd dest ; cpio -od... )

I think the OP only wants to match directories.

I don't think bash/ksh extended globbing has an equivalent of the (/) glob qualifier

Edit: Nice DGPickett, I had something similar in mind, with an xargs at then end of the pipe, but I gave up on that when I realized the OSX mv doesn't support -t DIRECTORY

Sorry for not reading carefully.
All shells have <glob>/:

Code:

$ mkdir archive dir{1..3}
$ touch file{1..3} README.txt
$ shopt -s extglob
$ mv -v -- !(@(README.txt|archive))/ archive
`dir1/' -> `archive/dir1'
`dir2/' -> `archive/dir2'
`dir3/' -> `archive/dir3'

Actually, if README.txt is not a directory, this should be sufficient (extended glob is not needed):

Code:

mv -- */ archive

To get rid of the error message about moving the archive directory (and if 2>/dev/null is not an option, because the
exit status is important), with extended glob:

Code:

shopt -s extglob
mv -- !(archive)/ archive

Note that you may need to add some code/option to handle the case when no directory matches
or when you want to include hidden directories.

I believe I saw a similar subtree copy utility with tar, but it did not have a way to exclude files. Havng the file list allows you to do tricky things like sorting by extension and then by path so similar files hit a compressor in the middle before an ssh/rsh to another host over the network where you decompress and cpio -o. It optimizes the compression that effectively multiplies the network speed. I like the simple, modular tools, but you can do something similar with rsync using 'ssh -C -o CompressionLevel=9'. Looking at the man, I see rsync allows you to exclude files, and it says GNU tar does, too: Man Page for rsync (all Section 0) - The UNIX and Linux Forums

-maxdepth is available in OS X's find.

Code:

$ sw_vers -productVersion                      
10.8.2

$ man find | col -b | grep -A1 -- -maxdepth    
     -maxdepth n
	     Always true; descend at most n directory