List all files that do not match pattern using ls

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How can I use inverse or negative wildcards when pattern matching in a unix/linux shell?

I've read the man page for ls, and I can't find the option to list all that do not match the file selector. Do you know how to perform this operation?

For example: lets say my directory is this:

> ls
a.txt b.mkv c.txt d.mp3 e.flv

Now I would like to do something that does the following

> ls -[SOME_OPTION] *.txt
b.mkv d.mp3 e.flv

Is there such an option?

If not, is there a way to pipe the output of ls to another function (possibly sed) that shows only the ones that I would like?

I don't know exactly how to do this, but I'm imagining it would be something like:

> ls | sed [SOMETHING]

I really should learn how to use sed,awk,and grep, but I keep getting stuck at understanding how to write the regexes. I understand the concept of regular expressions clearly, but I get confused between regexes that use different syntax.

Any help would be much appreciated!

EDIT:

I forgot to mention that I am running Mac OS X, so the functions may be slightly different from the ones discussed in other answers for the unix/linux shell (hence some of my confusion with sed,awk,and grep).

https://stackoverflow.com/q/8525437/608639 – jww Aug 22 '18 at 13:41 — jww, Aug 22 '18 at 13:41

score 57 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 18 '19 at 07:29

57

this may be help you

ls --ignore=*.txt

It will not display the .txt files in your directory.

edited Jan 18 '19 at 07:29

Andrii Abramov

10,019
9
74
96

answered Sep 29 '12 at 04:49

Manikandan Rajendran

1,142
1
8
9

2

This one worked well for me. You can string --ignore switches together, and thus ignore e.g. all txt files, all files starting with a j and all files with a name containing 'bar': `ls --ignore=*.txt --ignore=j* --ignore=*bar*` – Gert Sønderby May 21 '13 at 12:28
2

I get illegal option when I use that on El Capitan ls --ignore=*pdf ls: illegal option -- - usage: ls [-ABCFGHLOPRSTUWabcdefghiklmnopqrstuwx1] [file ...] – Adil Hindistan Sep 11 '16 at 14:13
2

Thanks. Actually this should be the accepted answer!! – Veera Jan 17 '17 at 09:54

score 18 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 28 '12 at 05:31

18

maybe this command will help you

find ./ -maxdepth 1 ! -path "*txt"

answered Sep 28 '12 at 05:31

Robert Guo

262
1
8

This works nicely with many different selectors as the `path` parameter. Thank you! One thing I found was that I could do `find . -maxdepth 1 ! -path "*txt"` too. Now what would I have to use if I had a Regex for filtering the list? – Kaushik Shankar Sep 28 '12 at 05:50
if you want use Regex , use grep . ex . you have 3 files like "a b c" , use ls | grep -v "[a|b]" , then it will display c .and then if you have 3 files a aa aaa , use "ls | grep -v "a+" , then it will only display "a". – Robert Guo Sep 28 '12 at 06:30
./ Argument is optional since find command already start searching down from current Directory tree – kante May 24 '13 at 09:44
Mani R's asnwer is the valid answer for the original question. – karatedog Oct 17 '19 at 20:10

score 15 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 28 '12 at 05:25

15

ls|grep -v ".txt"

does this helps?

answered Sep 28 '12 at 05:25

nav_jan

2,473
4
24
42

This works for the case I gave you, but really I'm looking for something that works with any selectors. For example, If I wanted to not show the ones that had the `x` character followed by the word `in`, I need to use the `*x*in*` selector. This wouldn't be possible using your example I think. – Kaushik Shankar Sep 28 '12 at 05:47
@KaushikShankar I think it will work. Give it a try. – nav_jan Sep 28 '12 at 06:28

score 7 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 28 '12 at 07:34

ls just lists what arguments it is presented with. *.txt gets expanded to a.txt c.txt before ls sees it, try echo *.txt.

To do what you ask with sed you can delete the pattern from its input, for example:

ls | sed '/\.txt$/d'

Would delete all lines ending with .txt.

With bash and zsh you can have the shell do the inverted expansion, with bash it would be:

ls !(*.txt)

zsh:

ls *~*.txt

Note that both shells need the extended glob option to be enabled, shopt -s extglob with bash and setopt extendedglob with zsh.

Thanks for showing me another zsh feature! It's awesome. – Kaushik Shankar Sep 28 '12 at 08:00 — Kaushik Shankar, Sep 28 '12 at 08:00

score 4 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 28 '12 at 05:31

4

One way using find:

find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -not -name "*.txt" -printf "%f\n"

answered Sep 28 '12 at 05:31

Steve

51,466
13
89
103

Thank you for your response! Unfortunately, I think there may be an issue with running on Mac OS X. The error I get is the following: Command: `>find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -not -name "*.txt" -printf "%f\n"` Error: `39m\n"find: -printf: unknown primary or operator` – Kaushik Shankar Sep 28 '12 at 05:42
@KaushikShankar: Yes ignore the printf statement, it will only neaten your ouput to provide a list of files similar to how `ls` would work. It seems `BSD find` doesn't understand it. – Steve Sep 28 '12 at 06:13

List all files that do not match pattern using ls

5 Answers5

Linked