How can I use inverse or negative wildcards when pattern matching in a unix/linux shell?

Question

Say I want to copy the contents of a directory excluding files and folders whose names contain the word \'Music\'.

cp [exclude-matches] *Music* /target_direc         


        

Answer 1

My personal preference is to use grep and the while command. This allows one to write powerful yet readable scripts ensuring that you end up doing exactly what you want. Plus by using an echo command you can perform a dry run before carrying out the actual operation. For example:

ls | grep -v "Music" | while read filename
do
echo $filename
done

will print out the files that you will end up copying. If the list is correct the next step is to simply replace the echo command with the copy command as follows:

ls | grep -v "Music" | while read filename
do
cp "$filename" /target_directory
done