SSH command for looping through directories EXCEPT a few specified

Would it be possible to execute a bash command via SSH which loops over multiple directories EXCEPT 3 or 4 that I specify? Something like:

Delete public_html/outdated/ for all directories in /home/ except /home/exception1/ , /home/exce开发者_C百科ption2/ and /home/exception3/

I am on a HostGator Dedicated Linux server.

This is all one line, but I've split it here for readability

find /home
    \( -wholename '/home/exception1'
    -o -wholename '/home/exception2'
    -o -wholename '/home/exception3' \)
    -prune -o
  -wholename '*/public_html/outdated' -type d
  -exec rm -rvf \{} \;

Before running this I strongly suggest replacing the -exec rm -rvf \{} \; bit with -print to verify that it prints only what you want deleted.

Here's how it works: find recursively finds stuff. the stuff in \(...\)' matches directories you want to skip entirely (ie: prune). The standard pattern for using-pruneis to say what you want to prune out, then-prune -o`, and then the stuff you actually want to match.

We want to match public_html/outdated directories, so that's what -wholename '*/public_html/outdated' -type d is for. (-type d means "is a directory").

Finally comes the action we want to perform. Once again, replace this part with -print until you're sure it does what you want.

One caveat: This will spit out a bunch of warnings of the form:

find: `/home/foo/public_html/outdated': No such file or directory

This is because find is trying to walk into those directories it just deleted. You can safely ignore these -- find will continue despite the warnings.

Test first!

shopt -s extglob
rm -rf /home/!(exception1|exception2|exception3)/public_html/outdated/

Here's a simple solution - there's probably better ways to do this.

cd /home
ls */public_html/outdated

will should you all of those; you can use grep -v to remove lines from that

ls */public_html/outdated | grep -Ev ^exception1/ | grep -Ev ^exception2/ | grep -Ev ^exception3/

and then use backticks to feed these into rm -rf

rm -rf `ls */public_html/outdated | grep -Ev ^exception1/ | grep -Ev ^exception2/ | grep -Ev ^exception3/`

Obviously you should run the middle step to verify the list before you actually delete them!

Note that this may not work if any of your directories have spaces in - although usernames in /home shouldn't. The safe way to do that is using find. (There's probably a way to do the exclusion with find but I can never remember.)