How to copy multiple files from container to host using docker cp

I want to use wildcard to select multiple files from a directory in a container and use docker cp to copy these files from container to docker host.

I couldn't find if support for using wildcard is available with docker cp yet or not.

docker cp fd87af99b650:/foo/metrics.csv* /root/metrices_testing/

This results with the error metrics.csv*: no such file or directory

I came across an example where for loop was used to select a few files and then sent to container, but i want to transfer files from container to host and want to do this on docker host itself as script is running on host only.

Using docker exec to select files first and then copying them using docker cp can be an option. But that is a 2 step process.

Can someone please help me do this in one step?

EDIT:

I tried this. A step close but still failing.

# for f in $(docker exec -it SPSRS bash -c "ls /opt/tpa/logs/metrics.csv*");
     do docker cp SPSRS:$f /root/metrices_testing/;
 done


: no such file or directory lstat /docker/overlay2/193d2ad0d8d087377e3b96cbfb672b0e39132ae5e961872127614c9396f8c068/merged/opt/SPS_18_5_R1/logs/metrics.csv.2018.07.10-08:45
: no such file or directory lstat /docker/overlay2/193d2ad0d8d087377e3b96cbfb672b0e39132ae5e961872127614c9396f8c068/merged/opt/SPS_18_5_R1/logs/metrics.csv.2018.07.10-09:00
: no such file or directory lstat /docker/overlay2/193d2ad0d8d087377e3b96cbfb672b0e39132ae5e961872127614c9396f8c068/merged/opt/SPS_18_5_R1/logs/metrics.csv.2018.07.10-09:15
: no such file or directory lstat /docker/overlay2/193d2ad0d8d087377e3b96cbfb672b0e39132ae5e961872127614c9396f8c068/merged/opt/SPS_18_5_R1/logs/metrics.csv.2018.07.10-09:30
: no such file or directory lstat /docker/overlay2/193d2ad0d8d087377e3b96cbfb672b0e39132ae5e961872127614c9396f8c068/merged/opt/SPS_18_5_R1/logs/metrics.csv.2018.07.10-09:45
: no such file or directory lstat /docker/overlay2/193d2ad0d8d087377e3b96cbfb672b0e39132ae5e961872127614c9396f8c068/merged/opt/SPS_18_5_R1/logs/metrics.csv.2018.07.10-10:00
: no such file or directory lstat /docker/overlay2/193d2ad0d8d087377e3b96cbfb672b0e39132ae5e961872127614c9396f8c068/merged/opt/SPS_18_5_R1/logs/metrics.csv.2018.07.10-10:15
: no such file or directory lstat /docker/overlay2/193d2ad0d8d087377e3b96cbfb672b0e39132ae5e961872127614c9396f8c068/merged/opt/SPS_18_5_R1/logs/metrics.csv.2018.07.10-10:30
: no such file or directory lstat /docker/overlay2/193d2ad0d8d087377e3b96cbfb672b0e39132ae5e961872127614c9396f8c068/merged/opt/SPS_18_5_R1/logs/metrics.csv.2018.07.10-10:45
: no such file or directory lstat /docker/overlay2/193d2ad0d8d087377e3b96cbfb672b0e39132ae5e961872127614c9396f8c068/merged/opt/SPS_18_5_R1/logs/metrics.csv.2018.07.10-11:00
: no such file or directory lstat /docker/overlay2/193d2ad0d8d087377e3b96cbfb672b0e39132ae5e961872127614c9396f8c068/merged/opt/SPS_18_5_R1/logs/metrics.csv.2018.07.10-11:15
: no such file or directory lstat /docker/overlay2/193d2ad0d8d087377e3b96cbfb672b0e39132ae5e961872127614c9396f8c068/merged/opt/SPS_18_5_R1/logs/metrics.csv.2018.07.10-11:30
: no such file or directory lstat /docker/overlay2/193d2ad0d8d087377e3b96cbfb672b0e39132ae5e961872127614c9396f8c068/merged/opt/SPS_18_5_R1/logs/metrics.csv.2018.07.10-11:45
: no such file or directory lstat /docker/overlay2/193d2ad0d8d087377e3b96cbfb672b0e39132ae5e961872127614c9396f8c068/merged/opt/SPS_18_5_R1/logs/metrics.csv.2018.07.10-12:00
: no such file or directory lstat /docker/overlay2/193d2ad0d8d087377e3b96cbfb672b0e39132ae5e961872127614c9396f8c068/merged/opt/SPS_18_5_R1/logs/metrics.csv.2018.07.10-12:15
: no such file or directory lstat /docker/overlay2/193d2ad0d8d087377e3b96cbfb672b0e39132ae5e961872127614c9396f8c068/merged/opt/SPS_18_5_R1/logs/metrics.csv.2018.07.10-12:30
: no such file or directory lstat /docker/overlay2/193d2ad0d8d087377e3b96cbfb672b0e39132ae5e961872127614c9396f8c068/merged/opt/SPS_18_5_R1/logs/metrics.csv.2018.07.10-12:45

Solution

In fact your solution can make your aims just need a little change:

for f in $(docker exec -it SPSRS bash -c "ls /opt/tpa/logs/metrics.csv*"); do docker cp SPSRS:$f /root/metrices_testing/; done

for f in $(docker exec SPSRS bash -c "ls /opt/tpa/logs/metrics.csv*"); do docker cp SPSRS:`echo $f | sed 's/\r//g'` /root/metrices_testing/; done

This is because docker exec SPSRS bash -c "ls /opt/tpa/logs/metrics.csv*" will have \r in every matched string, so finally the cp can not find the files in container.

So, we use echo $f | sed 's/\r//g' to get rid of \r for every file name, this could make you work.

NOTE: for alpine, we need to use sh to replace bash, meanwhile, -it should be deleted to avoid colorful print in alpine introduce some invisible characters like ^[[0;0m, etc.