Question

3

How can I create a filesystem "view" of a folder that excludes certain files?

rated 0 times [ 3] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 2466 / 3 Years ago, fri, october 22, 2021, 12:40:09

I want to have a path in the filesystem that shows the entire contents of some other path, excluding a few certain files of my choosing. For example, if the following already exists,

original-path

├── file1

├── file2

├── file3

├── file4

├── folder1

│   ├── file1

│   └── file2

└── folder2

    ├── file1

    └── file2

I want to be able to exclude /file1, /folder1/file1, and /folder2 from a new path that otherwise points to the same data:

new-path

├── file2

├── file3

├── file4

└── folder1

    └── file2

How can I accomplish this? Some kind of bind mount, FUSE filesystem, or clever linking scheme?

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ronicod

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2 Years ago

answered 3 Years ago dresuitable · Accepted Answer

rofs-filtered, a FUSE filesystem derived from Read-Only Filesystem, can exclude files using regular expressions:

$ cat rofs-filtered.rc 

^/file1$

^/folder1/file1$

^/folder2$

$ rofs-filtered -c /home/ak/sandbox/rofs-filtered.rc /home/ak/sandbox/original-path /home/ak/sandbox/new-path

$ tree {original,new}-path

original-path

├── file1

├── file2

├── file3

├── file4

├── folder1

│   ├── file1

│   └── file2

└── folder2

    ├── file1

    └── file2

new-path

├── file2

├── file3

├── file4

└── folder1

    └── file2

rofs-filtered isn't available in Ubuntu's repositories, but I've started a request to have it added.