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I have the following folder and files:

. ├── photos │ ├── photo-a │ │ ├── photo-a.meta.json │ │ └── photo-a.json │ ├── photo-b │ │ ├── photo-b.meta.json │ │ └── photo-b.json ... There are more folders and files in the photos folder in the same structure

I would want to copy all the files photo-a.json, photo-b.json and others into another folder called photos-copy. Basically, I want to exclude all the files that end with .meta.json but copy only those that end with .json files.

So, if done correctly, photos-copy folder would look like this:

. ├── photos-copy │ ├── photo-a.json │ └── photo-b.json ...

I tried something along cp -a ./photos/*.json ./photos-copy but this will end up copying everything because the .meta.json files also end with .json extensions.

How can I do this?

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2 Answers 2

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A couple of options spring to mind.

rsync --dry-run -av --prune-empty-dirs --exclude '*.meta.json' --include '*.json' photos/ photos-copy/

Or if you don't have rsync (and why not!?), this will copy the files retaining the structure

cp -av photos/ photos-copy/ rm -f photos-copy/*/*.meta.json

This variant will flatten the files into a single directory

cp -av photos/*/*.json photos-copy/ rm -f photos-copy/*.meta.json

You can do more fancy things with bash and its extended pattern matching, which here tells the shell to match everything that does not contain .meta in its name:

shopt -s extglob cp -av photos/*/!(*.meta).json photos-copy/
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  • Thanks a lot for the cp option! Just one thing, I notice that the files are still copied with their same folder in photos-copy. So, instead of copying to photos-copy/photo-a.json, they are still copied as photos-copy/photo-a/photo-a.json. Is there a way to copy and flatten it by one level to photos-copy/photo-a.json? Commented Feb 23, 2022 at 17:15
  • @xenon try the extra alternatives I've added Commented Feb 23, 2022 at 18:07
  • That's very cool! I tried the example you had with pattern matching, which I thought is cool, but I'm getting a syntax error: sh: -c: line 0: syntax error near unexpected token ('. Is there something I should take note of when using pattern matching? I have tried with and without the line shopt -s extglob` and I still got that syntax error. Commented Feb 23, 2022 at 18:38
  • Sounds like you're using sh rather than bash. They're different shells Commented Feb 23, 2022 at 20:46
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    The cp -av photos/*/!(*.meta).json photos-copy/ is very nice :). Thx. Commented Feb 24, 2022 at 10:35
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With rsync: rsync -rv --include="*/" --exclude="*.meta.json" --include "*.json" --exclude="*" ./photos/ photo-copy/

The original directory structure:

photo-a/photo-a.json photo-a/photo-a.meta.json photo-b/photo-b.json photo-b/photo-b.meta.json photo-b/photo-b.son

Output:

sending incremental file list photo-a/photo-a.json photo-b/photo-b.json

I tried it with the previous answer (rsync --dry-run -av --prune-empty-dirs --exclude '*.meta.json' --include '*.json' photos/ photos-copy/) output:

photo-a/photo-a.json photo-b/ photo-b/photo-b.json photo-b/photo-b.son

Explanation: In rsync include/exclude the order important. Include all subdirs 1st. Exclude the meta.json, include .json, and exclude any else.

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