How to use mv command to move only selected files?

Question

What is the command to move the all files to target directory except *.trg files?

Tried the below command but it's not working:

mv !(*.trg) tgtdir

Do you have extglob enabled? Whats the output of shopt extglob? — heemayl, May 30 '16 at 06:43

score 12 · Answer 1 · answered May 30 '16 at 07:09

12

You have an extended glob pattern, !(*.trg), which will only work if the extglob shell option is enabled.

As the output of shopt extglob shows:

extglob off

you don't have the option enabled.

So you need to enable extglob by:

shopt -s extglob

Then your command should work.

Also, your command can be made more compact by:

mv -t tgtdir !(*.trg|tgtdir)

answered May 30 '16 at 07:09

heemayl

Now I'm getting the below error msg:
mv: illegal option -- t Usage: mv [-f] [-i] f1 f2 mv [-f] [-i] f1 ... fn d1 mv [-f] [-i] d1 d2
– Prasath May 30 '16 at 07:16
@Prasathraj Are you using Ubuntu? If so, which release? – heemayl May 30 '16 at 07:28
What is the role of the -t option? – A.L May 30 '16 at 09:09
@A.L -t sets the target directory.. – heemayl May 30 '16 at 09:19

techraf · Answer 2 · 2016-05-30T06:39:59.857

5

Use find with a negated -name argument:

find . ! -name '*.trg' ! -name . -maxdepth 1 -exec mv {} <tgtdir> \;

! -name . excludes current directory and -maxdepth 1 assures only files and directories in the current one will be in the search results.

Just like with plain mv, depending on where your tgtdir exists you might need to exclude it too.

edited May 30 '16 at 06:39

answered May 30 '16 at 06:22

techraf

2 Answers2