tar - How to exclude a directory?

[Karl Auer]

On Wed, 2017-03-22 at 13:22 +0100, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> tar --exclude=./winOS_2[...]

Don't put anything in front of the name you wish to exclude. It should
look exactly as it appears in the current directory or in the tar file.

mkdir ralf
cd ralf
for i in fred mary john ; do
{
   mkdir $i
   touch $i/blah.txt
}
done
tar --exclude=mary -cvzf test.tar.gz *
tar tvzf test.tar.gz
rm test.tar.gz
cd ..
rm -fr ralf

A trailing slash on mary will make a difference for empty directories;
it means the empty directory will NOT be excluded (because the slash
will only match files IN the directory), so leave the slash off if you
don't want the empty directory either.

Also see tar options -P, --anchored, --no-anchored and any option with
"wildcard" in it. If you have lots of directories you want to exclude,
consider using a tag file and check out the --exclude-tag-* options.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
http://twitter.com/kauer389

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