How do I tar a folder or directory with all of it's files except leave out files from certain folders?

Question

Looking all over for a solution, but can't find it. Somehow I am always trying unique scenarios that no one ever thinks of. Weird. Anyway here is the scenario...

foldertop (keep)
-foldersub (keep)
--foldersubsub (keep)
----foldersubsubsub (keep)
------files (exclude)
----files (exclude)
--files (keep)
-files (keep)

I want to tar all directories and subdirectories. I want the entire folder structure, but I don't want all files. I want to keep some files from some folders and leave out other files from other directories.

The only thing i know to do is to exclude the folders of the files i don't want like so:

tar -cvf bak_1-28-15.tar --exclude=foldertop/foldersub/foldersubsub foldertop

Maybe i can add a star to keep the foldersubsub directory and exclude all the files within it like this:

tar -cvf bak_1-28-15.tar --exclude=foldertop/foldersub/foldersubsub/* foldertop

But that will exclude the foldersubsubsub directory as well. i want to exclude all the files in foldersubsubsub but keep the foldersubsubsub directory.

How can i do this scenario?

tried this without find method. doesn't work:

tar -cvf bak_1-28-15.tar --exclude=foldertop/foldersub/foldersubsub/* --include=foldertop/foldersub/foldersubsub/foldersubsubsub --exclude=foldertop/foldersub/foldersubsub/foldersubsubsub/* foldertop

the error i get is:

tar: unrecognized option '--include=foldertop/foldersub/foldersubsub/foldersubsubsub'

putting include at the end didn't work either, it's still an unrecognized option.

tar -cvf bak_1-28-15.tar --exclude=foldertop/foldersub/foldersubsub/* --exclude=foldertop/foldersub/foldersubsub/foldersubsubsub/* --include=foldertop/foldersub/foldersubsub/foldersubsubsub foldertop

putting folder at the end without an include in the middle doesn't work either. doesn't give and error, but the foldersubsubsub directory is not included.

tar -cvf bak_1-28-15.tar --exclude=foldertop/foldersub/foldersubsub/* --exclude=foldertop/foldersub/foldersubsub/foldersubsubsub/* foldertop foldertop/foldersub/foldersubsub/foldersubsubsub

next going to try star*.star* so i only target files and not folders. like this:

tar -cvf bak_1-28-15.tar --exclude=foldertop/foldersub/foldersubsub/*.* --exclude=foldertop/foldersub/foldersubsub/foldersubsubsub/*.* foldertop

that seems to have done the trick. this works for me since there will be no files without dots, and there will also be no files that begin with a dot.

Answer 1

find foldertop | grep -v "foldersubsubsub/files" | xargs tar -cvf tarFileName.tar

应该这样做。