How to exclude a directory in find . command

Question

I am working on the find command for all JavaScript files, but how do I exclude a specific directory?

This is my code:

for file in $(find . -name '*.js')

do 

  java -jar config/yuicompressor-2.4.2.jar --type js $file -o $file

done

Answer 1

Use the -prune switch. For example, if you want to exclude the misc directory just add a -path ./misc -prune -o to your find command:

find . -path ./misc -prune -false -o -name '*.txt'

Here is an example with multiple directories:

find . -type d \( -path dir1 -o -path dir2 -o -path dir3 \) -prune -false -o -name '*.txt'

Here we exclude ./dir1, ./dir2 and ./dir3 in the current directory, since in find expressions it is an action that acts on the criteria -path dir1 -o -path dir2 -o -path dir3 (if dir1 or dir2 or dir3), ANDed with type -d.

To exclude directory name at any level, use -name:

find . -type d \( -name node_modules -o -name dir2 -o -path name \) -prune -false -o -name '*.json'

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