Using find - Deleting all files/directories (in Linux ) except any one

Question

If we want to delete all files and directories we use, rm -rf *.

But what if i want all files and directories be deleted at a shot, except one particular fi

Answer 1

Short answer

ls | grep -v "z.txt" | xargs rm

Details:

The thought process for the above command is :

• List all files (ls)
• Ignore one file named "z.txt" (grep -v "z.txt")
• Delete the listed files other than z.txt (xargs rm)

Example

Create 5 files as shown below:

echo "a.txt b.txt c.txt d.txt z.txt" | xargs touch

List all files except z.txt

ls|grep -v "z.txt"

a.txt
b.txt
c.txt
d.txt

We can now delete(rm) the listed files by using the xargs utility :

ls|grep -v "z.txt"|xargs rm