This entry is a quick tip about Bash shell.
Many times I want to remove (rm), copy (cp), move (mv) or do other things (cat, head, etc.) to all files in a directory, except to a particular one or ones. If there are few files in a directory, it is not a big problem. But if you have 20 or more files, it can be a waste of time, mainly if you have to repeat the process many times. So, looking for a simple way to do that, I found this discussion in StackOverflow and this other link in Bash Hackers wiki.
Basically, you have to add the following line in the .bashrc file:
shopt -s extglobThis line will extends regexes and will able you to use patterns or lists in commands.
For example, if you want to remove all files, except one, you can use:
rm !(theFileIWannaSave) Or, for a group of files with the same pattern:
cat !(pattern*) To skip a list of files, you should use the pipe ( | ) as the separator:
mv !(firstFile | secondFile | thirdFile) ../ And there are other options, as you can check in the Bash hacker wiki link.