How to copy a directory structure but only include certain files

Question

I found a solution for my question in Windows but I'm using Ubuntu: How to copy a directory structure but only include certain files using Windows batch files?

As the title says, how can I recursively copy a directory structure but only include some files? For example, given the following directory structure:

folder1
  folder2
    folder3
      data.zip
      info.txt
      abc.xyz
    folder4
    folder5
      data.zip
      somefile.exe
      someotherfile.dll

The files data.zip and info.txt can appear everywhere in the directory structure. How can I copy the full directory structure, but only include files named data.zip and info.txt (all other files should be ignored)?

The resulting directory structure should look like this:

copy_of_folder1
  folder2
    folder3
      data.zip
      info.txt
    folder4
    folder5
      data.zip

Could you tell me a solution for Ubuntu?

Answer 1

$ rsync --recursive --include="data.zip" --include="*.txt" --filter="-! */" dir_1 copy_of_dir_1

To exclude dir3 regardless of where it is in the tree (even if it contains files that would match the --includes):

--exclude 'dir3/' (before `--filter`)

To exclude dir3 only at at specific location in the tree, specify an absolute path, starting from your source dir:

--exclude '/dir1/dir2/dir3/' (before `--filter`)

To exclude dir3 only when it's in dir2, but regardless of where dir2 is:

--exclude 'dir2/dir3/' (before `--filter`)

Wildcards can also be used in the path elements where * means a directory with any name and ** means multiple nested directories.

To specify only files and dirs to include, run two rsyncs, one for the files and one for the dirs. The problem with getting it done in a single rsync is that when you don't include a dir, rsync won't enter the dir and so won't discover any files in that branch that may be matching your include filter. So, you start by copying the files you want while not creating any dirs that would be empty. Then copy any dirs that you want.

$ rsync --recursive --prune-empty-dirs --include="*.txt" --filter="-! */" dir_1 copy_of_dir_1
$ rsync --recursive --include '/dir1/dir2/' --include '/dir3/dir4/' --filter="-! */" dir_1 copy_of_dir_1

You can combine these if you don't mind that your specified dirs don't get copied if they're empty:

$ rsync --recursive --prune-empty-dirs --include="*.txt" --include '/dir1/dir2/' --include '/dir3/dir4/' --filter="-! */" dir_1 copy_of_dir_1

The --filter="-! */" is necessary because rsync includes all files and folders that match none of the filters (imagine it as an invisible --include filter at the end of the list of filters). rsync checks each item to be copied against the list of filters and includes or excludes the item depending on the first match it finds. If there's no match, it hits that invisible --include and goes on to include the item. We wanted to change this default to --exclude, so we added an exclude filter (the - in -! */), then we negate the match (!) and match all dirs (*/). Since this is a negated match, the result is that we allow rsync to enter all the directories (which, as I mentioned earlier, allows rsync to find the files we want).

We use --filter instead of --exclude for the final filter because --exclude does not allow specifying negated matches with the ! operator.

Answer 2

I don't have a beautiful one liner, but since nobody else has answered you can always:

find . -name 'file_name.extension' -print | cpio -pavd /path/to/receiving/folder

For each specific file after copying the directories.

(Make sure you're in the original folder first, of course! :) )