Shulou(Shulou.com)06/01 Report--

This article mainly introduces how to delete all files except some types under a Linux directory, which is very detailed and has certain reference value. Friends who are interested must finish reading it!

Sometimes, you may encounter a situation where you need to delete all the files in a directory, or simply clean up a directory by deleting files other than some specified types (ending with a specified extension).

In this article, we will show you how to delete files in a directory other than the specified file extension or type through the rm, find, and globignore commands.

Before we go any further, let's take a brief look at an important concept in Linux-filename pattern matching, which allows us to solve the problem at hand.

Under Linux, an shell pattern is a string that contains the following special characters, called wildcards or metacharacters:

*-match 0 or more characters

?-match any single character

[sequence]-matches any character in the sequence

[! Sequence]-matches any character that is not in the sequence

We will explore three possible approaches here, including:

Delete files using the extended pattern matching operator

Different extended pattern matching operators are listed below, and these pattern lists are a list of one or more file names split with |:

* (list of patterns)-matches 0 or more specified patterns that appear

? (list of patterns)-matches 0 or 1 occurrence of the specified pattern

@ (list of patterns)-matches one or more of the specified patterns that appear

! (pattern list)-matches anything except a specified pattern

To use them, you need to turn on the extglob shell option as follows:

# shopt-s extglob

1. Delete all files in a directory except filename by entering the following command

$rm-v! ("filename")

Delete all files except one file under Linux

two。 Delete all files except filename1 and filename2

$rm-v! ("filename1" | "filename2")

Delete all files except some files under Linux

3. The following example shows how to delete all files except .zip in interactive mode.

$rm-I! (* .zip)

Delete all files except Zip files under Linux

4. Next, you can delete all files in a directory except all .zip and .odt files in the following way, and when deleting, display the files being deleted:

$rm-v! (* .zip | * .odt)

Delete all files except the specified file extension

Once you have executed all the required commands, you can also turn off the extglob shell option in the following way.

$shopt-u extglob

Use the find command under Linux to delete files

In this way, we can use only the appropriate options of the find command or use pipes with the xargs command, as follows:

$find / directory/-type f-not-name 'PATTERN'-delete $find / directory/-type f-not-name' PATTERN'-print0 | xargs-0-I {} rm {} $find / directory/-type f-not-name 'PATTERN'-print0 | xargs-0-I {} rm [options] {}

5. The following command will delete all files in the current directory except .gz

$find. -type f-not-name'* .gz'- delete

Find command-delete all files except .gz

6. Using pipes and xargs, you can modify the above example in the following ways:

$find. -type f-not-name'* gz'-print0 | xargs-0-I {} rm-v {}

Delete files using the find and xargs commands

7. Let's look at an additional example. The following command line deletes all files in the current directory except .gz, .odt, and .jpg:

$find. -type f-not\ (- name'* gz'-or-name'* odt'-or-name'* .jpg'\)-delete

Delete all files except the specified extension file

Delete files through the GLOBIGNORE variable in bash

However, the method of * * applies only to bash. The GLOBIGNORE variable stores a list of ignore patterns (or file names) for the pathname expansion pathname expansion function, separated by colons.

To use this method, change to the directory where you want to delete the file, and set the GLOBIGNORE variable as follows:

$cd test $GLOBIGNORE=*.odt:*.iso:*.txt

In this case, all files except .odt, .iso, and .txt are deleted from the current directory.

Now, run the following command to clear the directory:

$rm-v *

After that, turn off the GLOBIGNORE variable:

$unset GLOBIGNORE

Delete a file using the bash variable GLOBIGNORE

Note: to understand the meaning of the logo used on the command line above, please refer to the man manual corresponding to the command we use in each illustration.

That's it! If you know of other command-line technologies that implement the same directory, don't forget to share it with us through the feedback section below.

The above is all the contents of the article "how to delete all files except some types in a Linux directory". Thank you for reading! Hope to share the content to help you, more related knowledge, welcome to follow the industry information channel!

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.