Exclude a sub-directory using find

-name only matches the filename, not the whole path. You want to use -path instead, for the parts in which you are pruning the directories like def/incoming.


This works:

find /home/feeds/data -type f -not -path "*def/incoming*" -not -path "*456/incoming*"

Explanation:

  • find /home/feeds/data: start finding recursively from specified path
  • -type f: find files only
  • -not -path "*def/incoming*": don't include anything with def/incoming as part of its path
  • -not -path "*456/incoming*": don't include anything with 456/incoming as part of its path

Just for the sake of documentation: You might have to dig deeper as there are many search'n'skip constellations (like I had to). It might turn out that prune is your friend while -not -path won't do what you expect.

So this is a valuable example of 15 find examples that exclude directories:

http://www.theunixschool.com/2012/07/find-command-15-examples-to-exclude.html

To link to the initial question, excluding finally worked for me like this:

find . -regex-type posix-extended -regex ".*def/incoming.*|.*456/incoming.*" -prune -o -print

Then, if you wish to find one file and still exclude pathes, just add | grep myFile.txt.

It may depend also on your find version. I see:

$ find -version
GNU find version 4.2.27
Features enabled: D_TYPE O_NOFOLLOW(enabled) LEAF_OPTIMISATION SELINUX

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