Question

Is there a good way to run cp on the shell (MinGW, in my case) to copy only non-hidden files (i.e. files whose names do not begin with .)?

I’d like to exclude my .svn folders and their contents.

Answer 1

The shell doesn’t expand * to include names starting with a dot, so:

cp * /target/directory

That won’t copy the .svn directory.

If that isn’t your issue (e.g. you are trying to do a recursive copy with sub-directories that contain hidden files), please clarify what you are up to.