Given this directory content :
one.file
two.file
three.file
in bash, when I enter
rm *.file !(two)
only one.file
and three.file
are deleted. How can I do this in ZSH?
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Sign up to join this communityI was interested in the answer too, and a quick search turned up this article on globbing in zsh. The highlights:
^
Acts as a negation. For example, ls ^two.file
will only list the one.file and three.file.^
and *
. For example, ls ^two*
will list anything that doesn't start with "two"ls (^two).file
will list anything that doesn't start with "two", and does end in "file".If you want to use the ksh syntax ls !(two).file
, simply turn on the KSH_GLOB
option in zsh:
$ setopt KSH_GLOB
$ ls -1 !(two).file
one.file
three.file
But zsh provides other powerful globbing techniques, activated by the EXTENDED_GLOB
option. For a complete list, please read the section FILENAME GENERATION in man zshexpn
. Most relevant to the question are these operators:
^x
matches anything except the pattern x, so in your case ls -1 ^two.file
x~y
is more powerful as it matches anything that matches the pattern x but does not match y, so ls -1 *~two.file
. The special thing is, that you have can use another globbing pattern for x, e.g.
$ ls -1 *.file~two*
one.file
three.file
This is not possible with the ^
operator, which is in this case equivalent to *~
:
$ ls -1 *.file^two*
one.file
three.file
two.file
rm !(two).file
in bash.