zipping all files/dirs in a directory except some?

Question

How can I make a zip of all the files and subdirectories in the directory "mydir", except all those files/dirs that begin with a ".*"?

The command:

zip -r mydir.zip mydir/

will include everything. For example, if I have:

mydir/foo
mydir/bar
mydir/.hello

I'd like foo and bar to be included in mydir, but not .hello.

How can I do this? thanks.

Answer 1

This works for me:

zip -r mydir.zip mydir -x "*/.*"

@Joe Internet, @Dariusz: normal shell patterns won't work properly because zip matches against the full path+filename internally (as the zip manual explains... ;) )

Answer 2

You can use shell patterns to exclude matches, all is written in zip manual (with examples)

Answer 3

Try this...

zip -r mydir.zip mydir/ -x .*.*

Answer 4

Shorter, and takes advantage of the features of globbing:

zip -r mydir.zip mydir/*

(. files are not included in the * wildcard)

Note that the directory 'mydir/' may not be included in the paths of the files in the resultant zip file, so this will change the output slightly. You may have to change your extraction process as a result.

Answer 5

If you prefer more complex filtering capabilities, find is a good tool:

find mydir/ -! -name ".hello" -print | zip mydir -@

Have fun with 'find'.