Bash script to remove all files and directories except specific ones

Question

I am trying to write a very simple Bash shell script that will cd in a specific directory, it will remove all files and directories except some few selected ones and then cd

Answer 1

assuming you have files:

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 1 02:17 a

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 1 02:17 b

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 1 02:17 c

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 1 02:17 d

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 1 02:17 e

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 1 02:17 f

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 1 02:18 nodelete1

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 1 02:18 nodelete2

You could do:

ls | grep -v "nodel.\+" | xargs rm -rf

to use advanced regexp syntax to exclude files.

Explanation:

ls --- lists current directory (ls -d to list only directories)

grep -v --- v flag specifies what NOT TO MATCH + grep allows to write perl style regexp if you supply -P flag

xargs --- applies action "rm -rf" on each of the items