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Is there any way to remove all of the files in a directory except for one with a certain filename? For instance, if I had a directory containing the files file1, file2, and dontdelete. Would there be any way to quickly delete file1, and file2 and not dontdelete? I know that I could just do rm file1 file2 but that wouldn't work for a bunch of files. Also, I'm on Mac OS X if that makes a difference.

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Simple wildcarding may be your solution: rm file* will remove file1 and file2 but not dontdelete. If your needs are more complex then, depending shell scripting language, you could generate a list of files you want to delete using a regular expression and pipe this to the rm command. – therobyouknow Jan 1 '11 at 4:57
@Rob: Yeah, my situation is more complex than that. And Ignacio's answer worked. Thanks, though! – Wuffers Jan 1 '11 at 4:59
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In bash:

shopt -s extglob
rm !(dontdelete)
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Awesome! That worked perfectly! Thanks! – Wuffers Jan 1 '11 at 4:58
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+1 Wow very succinct solution. Will bear that in mind if I need it. – therobyouknow Jan 2 '11 at 13:17
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