Find files with include and exclude flags

Question

Suppose I have a directory with a bunch of files:

/file1.png
/directory1/file1.png
/directory1/file2.png
/directory1/file3.txt
/file2.txt
/directory2/file1.png
/directory2/file2.txt
/directory2/file3.gif

Is there a way you can recursively traverse the directories looking for files using --include and --exclude?

It would be great to find something as simply as:

find . --include "*.png" --exclude "file1.png"

• dave_thompson_085: For this simple case find . -name "*.png" '!' -name "file1.png" -- note the quoting of ! is not always needed but simpler to play it safe. For more complicated cases you can do full Boolean logic using -a -o ( ) (where bottom-level -a can be implicit as here) as described on the man page; again ( ) usually need quoting.
• janos: @dave_thompson_085 I suggest to make your comment an answer

Answer 1

To exclude a file, either use a more restrictive regex than *.png or grep the output to exclude a result:

find . -name "*.png" | grep -v "file1.png"

You can exclude a whole directory tree by using the -prune option, but it doesn't exclude on a file level.

• dave_thompson_085: I've never seen a find that takes --include or in fact any double-hyphen; ITYM -name or maybe -path but those take a pattern not a regex; your example "*.png" is a (properly quoted) pattern and not a regex. Some finds do take -regex with an actual regex.
• woolfie: You're right, I was just quoting some of the original post without checking too much. I'll edit to correct it.