make rm -rf ignore a particular file

[srinivas88]

Hi,
i'm using the following cmd to remove all lib files ending with .a

find . -name "*.a" -exec rm -rf {} \;

I have a file which i dont want to delete , say test.a,
I just want to know how to make rm not delete test.a,
but delete rest all files ending with .a

[TrustyTony]

see -not swich for find and take out r from rm to remove one by one. That would leave directories there, however.

[b1izzard]

Just give the name of the file you don't need to delete in the regular expression
like

find . -name "[!test.a]*.a" -not -exec rm -rf '{}' \;

[Habitual]

rm -f !(filename.ext)
or
rm !(*.tex|*.pdf) deletes all except the tex and pdf files

are just 2 examples.

[ramaakella]

find . -name "*.a" -exec rm -rf {} \;

find . -not -name "*.a" -exec rm -rf {} \;