How to tar.gz recursively, but miss out certain folders

Question

i have a directory structure with files like

/files/pics/gal1/1.jpg
/files/pics/gal1/thumbs/1.jpg
/files/pics/gal1/full/1.jpg

(with 1000's of files. gal1 and 1.jpg obviously change)

all i want to back up are everything apart from the ones in /full/. so basically, i need to backup:

/files/pics*

but exclude

/files/pics/*/full/*

how can i write a .tar.gz to do this?

thank you

Answer 1

From the directory containing the files directory:

tar -zcf files.tgz files --exclude="files/pics/*/full"