Unix Move files without matching a pattern

Question

I have a query on unix move for files not matching pattern. Example below:

Directory listing

Now, I want to move all the files not matching 20150328 into archieve directory with a single command. Please help......

Assuming they're all in the same folder (you haven't said!) for x in 2015* ; do if [ ! "$x" = "20150328" ] ; then mv $x archieve; fi ; done — lurker
– lurker, Commented Mar 30, 2015 at 13:47

rojomoke · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-30 14:59:11Z

2

find with the -name parameter and the ! negation operator:

find . -type f ! -name 20150328 -exec mv {} archieve \;

The {} matches the file just found, and the escaped semi-colon terminates the exec'ed command. To exclude multiple files, just repeat the ! -name filename clause

edited Mar 30, 2015 at 14:59

answered Mar 30, 2015 at 13:49

rojomoke

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3 Comments

Bhabani Shankar Over a year ago

This one worked .. but with some warning message like below: mv: 0653-405 ./archieve/20150327 and archieve/20150327 are identical. for all the files

Bhabani Shankar Over a year ago

Also how about multiple files. I want to move all the files leaving files with 2 conditions... say .. as per above example I want to keep 20150328 and 20150327.

rojomoke Over a year ago

@Bhabani Shankar see my added sentence about multiple exclusions. I'm not sure why you're getting warnings about identical files., Are all your source files in one directory with unique names?

Mintri · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-30 13:53:40Z

1

execute: shopt -s extglob after that do: mv !(20150328) "destination"

answered Mar 30, 2015 at 13:53

Mintri

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