Linux Copy Command – Copy Recursively Except Hidden Directory

command linecplinux

How do I copy recursively like cp -rf *, but excluding hidden directories (directories starting with .) and their contents?

Best Answer

You could just copy everything with

cp -rf

and then delete hidden directories at the destination with

find -type d -name '.*' -and -not -name '.' -print0 | xargs -0 rm -rf

Alternatively, if you have some advanced tar (e.g. GNU tar), you could try to use tar to exclude some patterns. But I am afraid that is not possible to only exclude hidden directories, but include hidden files.

For example something like this:

tar --exclude=PATTERN -f - -c * | tar -C destination -f - -x

Btw, GNU tar has a zoo of exclude style options. My favourite is

--exclude-vcs

Related Solutions

Linux – Difference between cp -r and cp -R (copy command)

While -R is posix well-defined, -r is not portable!

On Linux, in the GNU and BusyBox implementations of cp, -r and -R are equivalent.

On the other side, as you can read in the POSIX manual page of cp, -r behavior is implementation-defined.

    * If  neither  the  -R  nor  -r  options were specified, cp shall take
      actions based on the type and contents of the file referenced by the
      symbolic link, and not by the symbolic link itself.

    * If the -R option was specified:

       * If  none  of  the  options  -H,  -L, nor -P were specified, it is
         unspecified which of -H, -L, or -P will be used as a default.

       * If the -H option was specified, cp shall take  actions based on
         the type and contents of the file referenced by any symbolic link
         specified as a source_file operand.

       * If the -L option was specified, cp shall take  actions based  on
         the type and contents of the file referenced by any symbolic link
         specified as a source_file operand or any symbolic links encoun-
         tered during traversal of a file hierarchy.

       * If  the  -P option was specified, cp shall copy any symbolic link
         specified as a source_file operand and any symbolic links encoun-
         tered  during traversal of a file hierarchy, and shall not follow
         any symbolic links.

    * If the -r option was  specified,  the  behavior  is implementation-
      defined.

Symlink Copy a Directory Non-recursively

Nevermind, I figured it out. I can't believe I didn't try this sooner:

ln -s /home/my_username/path_to_directory/* .

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Linux – Difference between cp -r and cp -R (copy command)

Symlink Copy a Directory Non-recursively

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