Deleting all files & directories except those matching a given glob pattern

Question

I have a list of all the files & directories that I need to delete, but I need to exclude all files/directories that match a given glob pattern. Any suggestions on how I can achieve this?

I am currently using the FileUtils class to delete files like this -

for (File path : cleanableFiles) {
            try {
                FileUtils.deleteQuietly(path);
                FileUtils.deleteDirectory(path);
            } catch (Exception exception) {
            }
        }

cleanableFiles is Set<File>. I also have a glob pattern string (e.g '*.txt' to match all files that have .txt extension). I need to not delete the files/directories that match the glob pattern.

Answer 1

You can accomplish this in Java by using the java.nio.file.Files and java.nio.file.Path classes, and by using the java.nio.file.FileSystem class to create a PathMatcher that can match against a glob pattern.

import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.nio.file.Paths;
import java.nio.file.PathMatcher;
import java.nio.file.FileSystems;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.List;