skipped. If no matching include/exclude pattern is found then the
filename is not skipped.
-The filenames matched against the exclude/include patterns
-are relative to the destination directory, or "top
-directory", so patterns should not include the path elements
-of the source or destination directories. The only way in
-which a pattern will match the absolute path of a file or
-directory is if the source path is the root directory.
+The filenames matched against the exclude/include patterns are relative
+to the "root of the transfer". If you think of the transfer as a
+subtree of names that are being sent from sender to receiver, the root
+is where the tree starts to be duplicated in the destination directory.
+This root governs where patterns that start with a / match (see below).
+
+Because the matching is relative to the transfer-root, changing the
+trailing slash on the source path or changing your use of the --relative
+option affects the path you need to use in your matching (in addition to
+changing how much of the file tree is duplicated on the destination
+system). The following examples demonstrate this.
+
+Let's say that we want to match a source filename that has an absolute
+path of "/home/me/foo/bar", here is how the various command choices can
+differ:
+
+verb(
+ Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me /dest
+ Source root: /home ("me" is part of transfer)
+ +/- pattern: /me/foo/bar
+ Target file: /dest/me/foo/bar
+
+ Example cmd: rsync -a /home/me/ /dest
+ Source root: /home/me (due to trailing /)
+ +/- pattern: /foo/bar (note missing "me")
+ Target file: /dest/foo/bar
+
+ Example cmd: rsync -a --relative /home/me/ /dest
+ Source root: /home/me
+ +/- pattern: /home/me/foo/bar (note full path)
+ Target file: /dest/home/me/foo/bar
+)
+
+The easiest way to see what name you should include/exclude is to just
+look at the output when using --verbose and put a / in front of the name
+(use the --dry-run option if you're not yet ready to copy any files).
Note that when used with -r (which is implied by -a), every subcomponent of
-every path is visited from top down, so include/exclude patterns get
+every path is visited from the top down, so include/exclude patterns get
applied recursively to each subcomponent.
Note also that the --include and --exclude options take one pattern
start of the filename, otherwise it is matched against the end of
the filename.
This is the equivalent of a leading ^ in regular expressions.
- Thus "/foo" would match a file called "foo" at the top of the
- transferred tree.
+ Thus "/foo" would match a file called "foo" at the transfer-root
+ (see above for how this is different from the filesystem-root).
On the other hand, "foo" would match any file called "foo"
anywhere in the tree because the algorithm is applied recursively from
top down; it behaves as if each path component gets a turn at being the
end of the file name.
- The leading / does not make the pattern an absolute pathname.
it() if the pattern ends with a / then it will only match a
- directory, not a file, link or device.
+ directory, not a file, link, or device.
it() if the pattern contains a wildcard character from the set
*?[ then expression matching is applied using the shell filename
itemize(
it() --exclude "*.o" would exclude all filenames matching *.o
- it() --exclude "/foo" would exclude a file called foo in the top directory
+ it() --exclude "/foo" would exclude a file called foo in the transfer-root directory
it() --exclude "foo/" would exclude any directory called foo
it() --exclude "/foo/*/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
- levels below a directory called foo in the top directory
+ levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
it() --exclude "/foo/**/bar" would exclude any file called bar two
- or more levels below a directory called foo in the top directory
+ or more levels below a directory called foo in the transfer-root directory
it() --include "*/" --include "*.c" --exclude "*" would include all
directories and C source files
it() --include "foo/" --include "foo/bar.c" --exclude "*" would include
Example:
verb(
-$ rsync --write-batch=pfx -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/
-$ rcp pfx.rsync_* remote:
-$ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=pfx -a /bdest/dir/
-# or alternatively
-$ ssh remote ./pfx.rsync_argvs /bdest/dir/
+ $ rsync --write-batch=pfx -a /source/dir/ /adest/dir/
+ $ rcp pfx.rsync_* remote:
+ $ ssh remote rsync --read-batch=pfx -a /bdest/dir/
+ # or alternatively
+ $ ssh remote ./pfx.rsync_argvs /bdest/dir/
)
In this example, rsync is used to update /adest/dir/ with /source/dir/