Wildcards: How to exclude a string? (Does not contain)

Question

I was practicing the use of wildcards today .. that was a lot of fun.
The most complex thing that worked out exactly as I was expecting was:
ls [![:digit:]]*[a-z][0-9][0-9][0-9][aA-zZ]*[![:digit:]]

But I didn't actually manage to exclude a string.
How can I list only files which do not contain "test"?
Here some examples what I've tried already:

ls *!("test")*
ls !("test")
ls !=*"test"*
ls !(*"test"*)
ls *^test*
ls *(^test)*
ls (^test)*
ls !test*
ls !*test*
ls *!test*
ls !{test}
ls !*{test}*
ls *!{test}*

To get appropriate answers, you should specify which shell you are using — steeldriver, Dec 28 '20 at 21:13

Arkadiusz Drabczyk · Accepted Answer · 2020-12-28T21:13:18.917

4

In Bash:

$ shopt -s extglob
$ touch a b c test
$ ls !(*test*)
a  b  c

edited Dec 28 '20 at 21:13

answered Dec 28 '20 at 21:00

Arkadiusz Drabczyk

25,539

Make it !(*test*) to exclude anything with test in the front, middle or end. !(*test) would only exclude names where test appears at the end. – ilkkachu Dec 28 '20 at 21:12
@ilkkachu: thx, applied – Arkadiusz Drabczyk Dec 28 '20 at 21:13
Thanks man, that finally worked! Even with combined lower + upper case option ls !(*[Tt][Ee][Ss][Tt]*) – Heiko Dec 28 '20 at 21:39

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 28 '20 at 21:03

1

Alternatively and portably you can use find command as following:

find -type f ! -name '*test*'

answered Dec 28 '20 at 21:03

αғsнιη

41,407

Wildcards: How to exclude a string? (Does not contain)

2 Answers2