How to exclude directories from source with --relative

[Stuart Anderson]

I have been unable to figure out how to exclude directories that only
exist on the source side when running rsync version 3.0.2 with --relative.

Here is an artificial test that shows my problem in case 3).
Any help would be appreciated.


# mkdir -p /tmp/source/a/b /tmp/source/a/c
# touch /tmp/source/a/b/hello /tmp/source/a/c/world


1) Try mirroring both b/ and c/, this works:

# rsync -avn --relative  /tmp/source/./a/? /tmp/destination
sending incremental file list
created directory /tmp/destination
a/
a/b/
a/b/hello
a/c/
a/c/world

sent 119 bytes  received 30 bytes  298.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00 (DRY RUN)


2) Try excluding b/, this works:

# rsync -avn --relative --exclude b/ /tmp/source/./a/? /tmp/destination
sending incremental file list
created directory /tmp/destination
a/
a/c/
a/c/world

sent 76 bytes  received 23 bytes  198.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00 (DRY RUN)


3) Try excluding a/, this does not work:

# rsync -avn --relative --exclude a/ /tmp/source/./a/? /tmp/destination
sending incremental file list
created directory /tmp/destination
a/
a/b/
a/b/hello
a/c/
a/c/world

sent 119 bytes  received 30 bytes  298.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00 (DRY RUN)


-- 
Stuart Anderson  anderson at ligo.caltech.edu
http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~anderson