find: combining -path and -prune to exclude files and directories

I have a directory /srv/tftp/pxelinux.cfg and a file /etc/mtab. I want to exclude both from find. But whatever I do, either one always is not excluded

find /etc /srv -path /srv/tftp/pxelinux.cfg -prune -o ! -path /etc/mtab
find /etc /srv ( -path /srv/tftp/pxelinux.cfg -prune -o -print ) -a ( ! -path /etc/mtab )

Note: I find the -path /foo -prune -o -print syntax highly confusing and unintuitive

Answers:

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Method 1

Try this variant:

$ find /etc /srv ( -path /srv/tftp/pxelinux.cfg -o -path /etc/mtab ) 
    -prune -o -print

This will “prune” either of those 2 -path arguments from the list, and print everything else.

Method 2

This works for me:

find . ! -path "./.git*" -a ! -name states_to_csv.pl

so converting to your should be something like

find /etc /srv ! -path "./srv/tftp/pxelinux.cfg*" -a ! -name /etc/mtab

The -a flag stand for “and”.

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0