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I have two folders, one that I know the name of, and one that I don't:

~/foobar-as9df7 # I know the name of this one
~/foobar-7fq92h # I don't know the name of that one

How can I delete the folder that starts with foobar- and is NOT ~/foobar-as9df7, and that I don't know the name of?

Said differently, I want to rm -rf ~/foobar-as9df7 except that I don't know it's called foobar-as9df7, I only know its name starts with foobar- and it's not foobar-as9df7.

I've tried doing:

find foobar-* ! -name "foobar-as9df7"  -exec rm -rf {} \;

which works but strangely this triggers a message saying:

find: ‘foobar-7fq92h’: No such file or directory

-- EDIT

the output of this command:

find ~/ -type d -name 'foobar-*' ! -name 'foobar-as9df7' -exec echo .rm -r {} +

is as follows:

.rm -r /home/ubuntu/foobar-7fq92h
Jivan
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  • What shell are you using? – terdon Mar 23 '21 at 12:21
  • using bash shell – Jivan Mar 23 '21 at 12:22
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    Perfect, the answers in the dupe should be exactly what you need then. Something like shopt -s extglob; rm -r ~/foobar-!(as9df7). – terdon Mar 23 '21 at 12:24
  • is there an equivalent to shopt -s extglob for zsh, ideally that would work with both of them? – Jivan Mar 23 '21 at 12:25
  • Yes, but I don't know what it is. Zsh can do far fancier stuff than that so I am sure it can do it, but if you need a zsh-specific way, then please edit your question to clarify. Also, the find approach given in the answers of the dupe should work for any shell. If that isn't enough and you still want a zsh-only solution, edit your question so it can be reopened. – terdon Mar 23 '21 at 12:26
  • looks like zsh and bash have completely different syntax and extensions – Jivan Mar 23 '21 at 12:29
  • I find it crazy that this question was marked as "duplicate" so quickly — I'm still struggling to adapt the answers from the other question — if that was a real duplicate I wouldn't be struggling – Jivan Mar 23 '21 at 12:36
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    OK, that's why I left the comment here so you could easily ping me and let me know if the dupe was not right. But please edit and explain why the answers don't work for you. Simply saying it isn't a dupe when it certainly looks like one doesn't help us understand how to help you. – terdon Mar 23 '21 at 12:41
  • The commands in your case would be shopt -s extglob; rm -r ~/foobar-!(as9df7) in bash. Or, with find it would be find ~/ -type d -name 'foobar-*' ! -name 'foobar-as9df7' -exec rm -r {} + doesn't work. Since the main issue is the same, we prefer not to cover it again. If the problem was reaching the commands I just gave (which is understandable if you're not familiar with the syntax of the relevant tools), it is probably not worth having a separate question since the main answers are given in the dupe. – terdon Mar 23 '21 at 12:42
  • alright — I've tried to use the find command but somehow it says that find: ‘foobar-1e91d’: No such file or directory despite successfully removing it, which is weird – Jivan Mar 23 '21 at 12:50
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – terdon Mar 23 '21 at 12:51

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