UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I am using a find command like below in my script:



find /outfiles -type f -name cat -o -name vi -o -name grep 2>/dev/null


Which will search for files like "cat" , "vi" or "grep" in the "/outfiles" and subdirectories.
I want to ignore a particular subdirectory from the search. I want to ignore "/outfiles/backup" and all the subdirectories of "/outfiles/backup" from the above search.

Please could you tell me how to do that.. I tried using prune but not working.

Thanks,
D

Prune is a "don't go recursve at any directory" switch. I would do:

Code:

find /outfiles -type f -name cat -o -name vi -o -name grep 2>/dev/null |\
grep -vE "subdir1|subdir2|subdir2|<insertmorehere>"

Not that nice maybe but I have no other idea atm. Maybe it's not that many subdirs so it's doable to fill in the subdir's names into the grep.

prune got into my head and i wasnt thinking anything else...

Do you mean if I am running the find command at /outfiles, I cannot add a prune flag not to search for /outfiles/backup and all subdirectories but look else where?

I have updated with using grep -v and is working fine


Thanks
D

As far as I could see in the man page, you have to keep -prune out of it, as it does not go recursive at all. There are no parameters for -prune to tell it, which subdirectory to prune. It prunes from the directory you're starting your find from. So I usually do filter the text, find gives as output which is still fast and gives more opportunities than find. Especially GNU find gives a lot of switches, you don't have on other UNIXes (unless you install GNU find of course)

If I understand correctly what you want, you need

Code:

find /outfiles -path /outfiles/backup -prune -o -print

to list everything in /outfiles except for anything in /outfiles/backup.
(I use GNU find so I don't know if this is at all portable).