Exclude a subpath in find command [duplicate]

Question

I have the following find command:

find /mnt/F_11 -type f \( -iname '*.xls' -o -iname '*.xlsx' /)

How would I find all items in /mnt/F_11 but not in /mnt/f_11/DONOTENTER/?

In other words, I would want it to search:

YES /mnt/F_11
YES /mnt/F_11/somepath/
YES /mnt/F_11/somepath/other/
NO  /mtn/F_11/DONOTENTER/

David542 · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-18 20:46:52Z

3

Use -prune to avoid recursing down branches you don't want to follow.

find /mnt/F_11 -name DONOTENTER -prune -o \
     -type f \( -iname '*.xls' -o -iname '*.xlsx' \) -print

Note the explicit -print at the end -- this is important, as otherwise the implicit print action covers both branches.

David542

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answered Sep 18, 2015 at 20:27

Charles Duffy

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2 Comments

would that be faster than doing -not -path /mnt/F_11/DONOTENTER* ?

Yes, because -prune stops recursion down a path, whereas the other approach given would test contents within that subtree.