Shell command to tar directory excluding certain files/folders

Question

Is there a simple shell command/script that supports excluding certain files/folders from being archived?

I have a directory that need to be archived with a sub dire

Answer 1

I agree the --exclude flag is the right approach.

$ tar --exclude='./folder_or_file' --exclude='file_pattern' --exclude='fileA'

A word of warning for a side effect that I did not find immediately obvious: The exclusion of 'fileA' in this example will search for 'fileA' RECURSIVELY!

Example:A directory with a single subdirectory containing a file of the same name (data.txt)

data.txt
config.txt
--+dirA
  |  data.txt
  |  config.docx

• If using --exclude='data.txt' the archive will not contain EITHER data.txt file. This can cause unexpected results if archiving third party libraries, such as a node_modules directory.

• To avoid this issue make sure to give the entire path, like --exclude='./dirA/data.txt'