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I need to use the find command to get files that are not declared in an array.

# ALLOWED extensions
ext_allowed=("*.cs" "*.csproj" "*.sln" "*.json")

combined=""
for ext in "${ext_allowed[@]}"; do
        combined="$combined -not -name "$ext""
done


This doesn't work :(


find $location $combined -not -type d


This does work, but it looks the same??


find $location -not -name ".cs" -not -name ".csproj" -not -name ".json" -not -name ".sln" -not -type d

The variable location, just holds the location of the files. I also tried it already with the -o option in between, but this also does not work.

Can anyone help me out please? Thanks

Alex
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1 Answers1

-1

Instead of making combined a string, instead make it an array.

for ext in "${ext_allowed[@]}"; do
        combined+=($ext)
done

You will then need to use parameter expansion. (see https://wiki.bash-hackers.org/syntax/pe#search_and_replace)

find "$location" "${combined[@]/#/'-not -name '}" -not -type d
meijin3
  • 139
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    No, "${array[@]/#/replacement}" will not be able to insert extra arguments. Here, you want combined+=( ! -name "$ext" ) and find ... "${combined[@]}". – Stéphane Chazelas Aug 30 '22 at 17:41
  • @StéphaneChazelas I'm not sure what you mean by my method not being able to insert extra arguments. This may be entirely due to my own ignorance. Running it through a bash interpreter, it seems to work just fine: https://ideone.com/pJHdDq – meijin3 Aug 30 '22 at 17:46
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    Your using echo there for which echo '-not -name x' '-not -name x' and echo -not -name x -not -name x output the same thing since echo joins its arguments with spaces. Try with printf '<%s>\n' instead of echo for instance. Or without the echo and see that find is failing. – Stéphane Chazelas Aug 30 '22 at 17:48
  • find "$location" "${combined[@]/#/'-not -name '}" -not -type d is not working because I need to add quotes around the array values and I do not know how to fix this in a one liner. It is a sweet solution though. – Alex Aug 30 '22 at 18:45
  • moreover, the unquoted expansion of $ext in combined+=($ext) would expand the glob right then and there (if there are any matching files in the current directory). That's not what you want with find, you want to give it the unmodified pattern so that it can match against it in subdirectories also. – ilkkachu Aug 30 '22 at 20:29