include/exclude patterns to copy just certain files?

Bob Proulx bob at proulx.com
Thu Jul 8 05:31:05 GMT 2004


Wayne Davison wrote:
> Bob Proulx wrote:
> >   rsync -a --include '*/' --include '**/a1/foo' --exclude "*" . example.com:/tmp/
> 
> Yes, that is the way to use include/exclude without first figuring
> out where all the foo files are.  As you noted that results in all
> directories in the tree being created.

Darn.

> The easiest way around this is to switch from include/exclude to using
> the --files-from option, like this:
> 
> find . -name foo | rsync -a --files-from=- . example.com:/tmp/

Yes!  That is exactly what I want.  I see that it is a new option.  I
had not noticed its arrival.  In fact I needed to upgrade to get it.

I really think that is a good design direction.  Keep all of the file
finding tasks in 'find' and use it to drive rsync.  A nice modular
approach that follows the traditional UNIX philosophy.  I like it!

As an enhancement I would really like it even more if the --from0
option could be combined with --files-from to be --files-from0.  It is
more compact and has a similar style to find's --print0 option.
Although I will probably use -av0 with this more often than anything
else so this is not a big deal.

Thank you for pointing me to that option.  It works great.

Bob


More information about the rsync mailing list