How to copy a directory structure but only include

Question

As the title says, how can I recursively copy a directory structure but only include some files. E.g 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

Answer 1

For those using Altap Salamander (2 panels file manager) : in the Options of the Copy popup, just specify the file names or masks. Easy.

Answer 2

If Powershell is an option, you can do this:

Copy-Item c:\sourcePath d:\destinationPath -filter data.zip -recurse

The main disadvantage is it copies all folders, even if they will end up being empty because no files match the filter you specify. So you could end up with a tree full of empty folders, in addition to the few folders that have the files you want.

Answer 3

I am fine with regular expressions, lazy and averse to installs, so I created a batch file that creates the directory and copies with vanilla DOS commands. Seems laborious but quicker for me than working out robocopy.

1. Create your list of source files with complete paths, including drive letter if nec, in a text file.
2. Switch on regular expressions in your text editor.
3. Add double quotes round each line in case of spaces - search string (.*) replace string "\1", and click replace all
4. Create two lines per file - one to create the directory, one to copy the file (qqq will be replaced with destination path) - search string (.*) replace string md qqq\1\nxcopy \1 qqq\1\n and click replace all
5. Remove the filename from the destination paths – search \\([^\\^"]+)"\n replace \\"\n
6. Replace in the destination path (in this example A:\src and B:\dest). Turn OFF regular expressions, search qqq"A:\src\ replace B:\dest\ and click replace all.

md will create nested directories. copy would probably behave identically to xcopy in this example. You might want to add /Y to xcopy to suppress overwrite confirms. You end up with a batch file like so:

md "B:\dest\a\b\c\"
xcopy "C:\src\a\b\c\e.xyz" "B:\dest\a\b\c\e.xyz"

repeated for every file in your original list. Tested on Win7.

Answer 4

You don't mention if it has to be batch only, but if you can use ROBOCOPY, try this:

ROBOCOPY C:\Source C:\Destination data.zip info.txt /E

EDIT: Changed the /S parameter to /E to include empty folders.

Answer 5

With find and cp only:

mkdir /tmp/targetdir
cd sourcedir
find . -type f -name '*.zip' -exec cp -p --parents {} /tmp/targetdir ";"
find . -type f -name '*.txt' -exec cp -p --parents {} /tmp/targetdir ";"

Answer 6

Under Linux and other UNIX systems, using the tar command would do this easily.

$ tar cvf /tmp/full-structure.tar *data.zip *info.txt

Then you'd cwd to the target and:

$ tar xvf /tmp/full-structure.tar 

Of course you could pipe the output from the first tar into the 2nd, but seeing it work in steps is easier to understand and explain. I'm missing the necessary cd /to/new/path/ in the following command - I just don't recall how to do it now. Someone else can add it, hopefully.

$ tar cvf -  *data.zip *info.txt |  tar xvf - 

Tar (gnutar) is available on Windows too, but I'd probably use the xcopy method myself on that platform.