Include files though directory excluded

jw schultz jw at pegasys.ws
Wed Feb 19 00:24:06 EST 2003


On Tue, Feb 18, 2003 at 01:34:00PM +0100, Gregor Waluga wrote:
> Am Dienstag, 18. Februar 2003 02:04 schrieb Max Bowsher:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> With Schultz's hint it works fine now. Thanks!
> I didn't know before that I have to include the parent directories...
> 
> > NB: * will match dotfiles. No need for .* as well.
> 
> Really? As I understood the FAQ entry [1], * maches all files beside hidden 
> files and .* only maches all hidden files. When I type ls * in a console, all 
> files are listed, but n hidden files.
> 
> [1] http://rsync.samba.org/fom-serve/cache/70.html

That is not referring to --(ex|in)clude patterns.  What that
is referring to (though unclearly) is the globbing of
command-line arguments by the shell.  The exclude patterns
used by rsync resemble globbing but differ.

When a *x shell sees wildcards on the command-line it tries
to expand the patterns containing them to match one or more
existing pathnames.  The behavior when the globbing fails
and even whether * will match dot files may be controlled by
assorted settings in the shell.

These are common errors made by the victims of MS-DOS and
MS-Windows who confuse dot files for MS-DOS' hidden files and
shell globbing for the wildcard expansion commonly done by
MS-DOS applications.  Dot files are no different than other
files.  Their directory entries merely have a dot (.) as the
first character of their names.  ls (mostly) defaults to
omitting them from directory listings and globbing doesn't
usually match * with leading dots but these are conveniences
done strictly in user-land and are not an attribute of the
file.

-- 
________________________________________________________________
	J.W. Schultz            Pegasystems Technologies
	email address:		jw at pegasys.ws

		Remember Cernan and Schmitt


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