CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashreplacefind
user1273684
user1273684

Reputation: 1619

Why does find . -not -name ".*" not exclude hidden files?

I want to ignore all hidden files, but especially .git and .svn ones when searching (and later replacing) files, not I have found that the most basic way to exclude such hidden files described in many online tutorials doesn't work here.

find . -not -name ".*"

will also print hidden files.

The script I'm trying to write is

replace() {
    if [ -n "$3" ]; then expr="-name \"$3\""; fi
    find . -type f \( $expr -not -name ".*" \) -exec echo sed -i \'s/$1/$2/g\' {} \;
    unset expr
}

Upvotes: 7

Views: 8392

Answers (2)

user1273684
user1273684

Reputation: 1619

correct version

replace() {
        if [ -n "$3" ]; then expr=-name\ $3; fi
        find $PWD -name '.*' -prune -o $expr -type f -exec sed -i s/$1/$2/g {} \;
        unset expr
}

Upvotes: 0

Joni
Joni

Reputation: 111349

The thing is -not -name ".*" does match all files and directories that start with anything but "." - but it doesn't prune them from the search, so you'll get matches from inside hidden directories. To prune paths use -prune, i.e.:

find $PWD -name ".*" -prune -o -print

(I use $PWD because otherwise the start of the search "." would also be pruned and there would be no output)

Upvotes: 12

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