I have a directory sturucture as below /appl/export/ivdevl/comp /appl/export/ivdevl/comp/buildscripts /appl/export/ivdevl/comp/buildscripts/pkg.sh /appl/export/ivdevl/release /appl/export/ivdevl/comp/x /appl/export/ivdevl/comp/y /appl/export/ivdevl/comp/file1 /appl/export/ivdevl/compfile2 I need to execute pkg.sh such that it copies all the files/directories under /appl/export/ivdevl/comp to appl/export/ivdevl/comp/package directory (which will be created by script) and need to exclude /appl/export/ivdevl/comp/package /appl/export/ivdevl/comp/release /appl/export/ivdevl/comp/buildscripts dir i tried the below #!/usr/bin/ksh packagedir=../package rm -rf $packagedir mkdir $packagedir cd ..;find . \( -name "package" -o -name "release" -o -name "buildscripts" \) -prune -o | cpio -pdumv ./package it fails as below bash-2.03$ ./package.sh find: bad option find: path-list predicate-list 0 blocks bash-2.03$ on cmd line it works find any help would be apprecaited Thx Mehul

I don't have time to check this out in depth, but I can tell you that you have one find syntax error. Remove the -o for or switch before piping to cpio: find . \( -name "package" -o -name "release" -o -name "buildscripts" \) -prune | cpio -pdumv ./package