How to exclude a directory in find . command

Question

I\'m trying to run a find command for all JavaScript files, but how do I exclude a specific directory?

Here is the find code we\'re using.<

Answer 1

-prune definitely works and is the best answer because it prevents descending into the dir that you want to exclude. -not -path which still searches the excluded dir, it just doesn't print the result, which could be an issue if the excluded dir is mounted network volume or you don't permissions.

The tricky part is that find is very particular about the order of the arguments, so if you don't get them just right, your command may not work. The order of arguments is generally as such:

find {path} {options} {action}

{path}: Put all the path related arguments first, like . -path './dir1' -prune -o

{options}: I have the most success when putting -name, -iname, etc as the last option in this group. E.g. -type f -iname '*.js'

{action}: You'll want to add -print when using -prune

Here's a working example:

# setup test
mkdir dir1 dir2 dir3
touch dir1/file.txt; touch dir1/file.js
touch dir2/file.txt; touch dir2/file.js
touch dir3/file.txt; touch dir3/file.js

# search for *.js, exclude dir1
find . -path './dir1' -prune -o -type f -iname '*.js' -print

# search for *.js, exclude dir1 and dir2
find . \( -path './dir1' -o -path './dir2' \) -prune -o -type f -iname '*.js' -print