Question

2

How exclude folders for remove when using ( rm -rf *) on the parent dir

rated 0 times [ 2] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 4111 / 3 Years ago, mon, may 10, 2021, 7:15:17

i run the following command line to remove all files/dirs in directory :

       cd /home/abdennour/android/



       rm -rf *

the architecture of this directory is as following :

   /home/abdennour/android/

   /home/abdennour/android/documents/

   /home/abdennour/android/documents/medialib/

   /home/abdennour/android/documents/preview/

   /home/abdennour/android/fixtures/

   /home/abdennour/android/images/

   /home/abdennour/android/images/hard/

   /home/abdennour/android/images/mlibrary/

   /home/abdennour/android/images/mlibrary/thumbs/

   /home/abdennour/android/js/ 

  .....

i want to remove all with excluding the following directories :

  /home/abdennour/android/documents/

  /home/abdennour/android/images/mlibrary/

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wenceslockro

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1 Year ago

answered 3 Years ago repend · Accepted Answer

You can use GLOBIGNORE environment variable. Suppose that you want to delete everithing except /home/abdennour/android/documents/ and /home/abdennour/android/images/mlibrary/, then you can do the following:

cd /home/abdennour/android/

export GLOBIGNORE="documents:images"

rm -rf *

cd images

export GLOBIGNORE="mlibrary"

rm -rf *

export GLOBIGNORE=""