Excluding files of particular extension using DIR command on windows command line

Question

if i want to see e.g. files of a particular extension only using dir listing, i can do that using the command:

DIR *.txt

And it shows all files with .txt extension.
Now i want to know is there any command with wich i can exclude certain extensions?
For example, i don't want to see any file with extension .exe, how can i do that?

score 38 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 29 '12 at 14:09

38

DIR wont allow what you are trying to do. However DIR along with FINDSTR can solve this.

e.g. The following ignores all .txt files in the DIR listing.

dir | findstr /v /i "\.txt$"

answered Jan 29 '12 at 14:09

IUnknown

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you may want to use `dir /b | findstr /v /i "\.txt$"` because `dir` will output the header and the possible incorrect files and folders count at the end – phuclv Apr 06 '17 at 04:08
Why `findstr` over just `find`? – Sopalajo de Arrierez Jan 01 '19 at 16:59
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Because find searches for text and findstr supports regexes I suggested Findstr. If you just want to search an exact string find would work fine too. – IUnknown Jan 02 '19 at 11:37

score 14 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 29 '12 at 14:02

14

dir /B | find /V ".txt"

This would list all files and find would filter out anything that doesn't contain ".txt". It's far from perfect, but maybe it's enough :)

answered Jan 29 '12 at 14:02

Oliver Salzburg

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No need for `/B`, I would say, but I prefer this answer as long as I don't see the need for 'findstr` (the actual accepted one). – Sopalajo de Arrierez Jan 01 '19 at 17:00

score 3 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 16 '20 at 04:40

3

It depends on your command interpreter.

Microsoft's cmd doesn't have such a facility, as you can see from the other answers where one has to post-process the output of dir. However, the tool from JP Software's TCC/LE has this feature. It is called a file exclusion range and is used like this for the example in your question:

dir /[!*.exe] *

edited Dec 16 '20 at 04:40

Amin Ya

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answered Jan 29 '12 at 17:34

JdeBP

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Thank you, but i think this tool run as standalone program. I am making my application where i run external process using windows shell or bash in ubuntu, so this tool will not fit, If they provide cmd line switches then it will be useful. – Johnydep Jan 30 '12 at 00:01
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The aforegiven clearly **is** a command-line switch. Read the hyperlinked documentation. Of course, in most programming languages it is fairly silly to go to the length of using the shell for [obtaining directory contents](http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=list+directory), and you are on the wrong StackExchange for writing applications. – JdeBP Jan 30 '12 at 08:09
thanks for the explanation, that's true but it is a workaround for scanning those directories which require Elevation and i don't want to make my code trigger UAC prompt, when i can get results from cmd prompt without requiring higher privilege. – Johnydep Jan 31 '12 at 16:21

Excluding files of particular extension using DIR command on windows command line

3 Answers3

It depends on your command interpreter.