Linux: How do I archive select file extensions in an unknown tree

Question

What is the best way to archive select file extensions in an unknown tree. I cannot use exclude options in tar/gzip/rsync as it would be impossible to exclude all possible extension variations.

Example to backup all .foo and .bar files in a recursive tree but not other unknown file types.

I presume this will need to be a combination of ls/find, grep and tar/gzip.

Thank you

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:14

2

Very similar to dmourati's answer, but without xargs.

find /path/to/tree \( -name "*.foo" -o -name "*.bar" \) -print0 | tar -T /dev/stdin --null -cvzf foobar.tar.gz

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:14

Community

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answered May 21 '11 at 03:17

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

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dmourati · Answer 2 · 2011-05-21T03:23:14.820

1

Try something like this:

find /path/to/tree \( -name "*.foo" -o -name "*.bar" \) -print0 | xargs -r0 tar cvzf foobar.tar.gz

You generate the list of files via the find command and then pipe that to xargs and on to tar.

edited May 21 '11 at 03:23

answered May 21 '11 at 03:14

dmourati

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This could cause issues if there are too many files for `xargs` to put in a single command. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams May 21 '11 at 03:16
There are a lot of them and the tree does get quite deep in places – Linux Tar Archive query May 21 '11 at 03:18
Maybe just me but it seams to be ignoring the first file extension and just tar'ing the second. – Linux Tar Archive query May 21 '11 at 03:23
Editted to fix the grouping – dmourati May 21 '11 at 03:23

Linux: How do I archive select file extensions in an unknown tree

2 Answers2