How to use ‘cp’ command to exclude a specific directory

cp command is used to create an exact copy of the contents of the files and directories but with a different name and location. It works using the terminal. The exact syntax goes like this: 

Syntax:

cp [source_file/directory] [destination]

Where cp is used for the copy, source_file provides the exact file or directory or folder from where you want to copy the contents; destination provides the location where you want to copy the file to.

Usage of the cp command to exclude a specific directory

Example 1: To copy the contents of a file to another file in the same directory using the “cp” command:

Step 1: We will list all the files and directories using the ls command.

ls

Step 2: Create a file f1.txt and display its contents using the cat command.

Step 3: If we want to copy the file in the same directory, we use the following syntax:

$ cp f1.txt f2.txt

Here, the contents of file1 is copied to file2.

To check that, type the ls command

ls

To find out the contents of file2.txt,

cat f2.txt

This is how the cp command works. It will copy the contents of a file or a directory to another one. We will understand the concept using the cp command to copy folders from one directory/location to other but excluding some specific folders/ directories.

We will enlist brief working of all the commands utilized for our example:

Command	Usage
cd	to change the directory from the current directory cd ..  will move one level up in the hierarchy cd directoryName will go  to the specified directory
mkdir	Will make a directory/folder in the current folder. We can create multiple directories in the same line separated by space. ex: mkdir d1 d2 d3
ls	Will list all the files and directories in the current one ls -A will list all files and directories including the hidden one (starting with “.” )
cat	will create a new file cat>f1.txt   creates new text file f1 and opens in writable mode cat f1.txt   displays the contents of file f1
cp	copy command copies the contents of one file to another in either the same or the other directory

Example 2: To copy all the files from one directory to another except a specific one using cp command:

Step 1: Let’s create 2 empty directories- source (src) and destination (dest).

Syntax:

$ mkdir src dest

We will check the directories being created using the ls command

Syntax:

$ ls

Output:

Step 2: Change the directory to src using cd command.

Syntax:

$ cd src

We will create two files f1.txt and f2.txt in the src directory using the cat command.

Syntax:

$ cat>f1.txt

cat command allows us to create a file and write the contents in the console itself.

Similarly, we will create another file f2 in the same directory (src).

Output:

Step 3: Check the contents of the dest using the ls command. Currently, it has 0 files/folders.

Syntax:

$ cd ..                 [goes to one directory upwards]

$ cd dest            [ move inside dest directory]

$ ls                     [ list the contents of dest directory]

Output:

Step 4: Now use the cp command to copy all files and folders from src except f2.txt to the folder dest.

Syntax:

$ cp src/(!f2.txt) dest 

Check the files in the dest directory using the ls command

Syntax:

$ ls dest

Output:

So all the files(here f1.txt) is copied from the src folder to the dest folder using copy command except one file(f2.txt)

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