Using Rsync include and exclude options to include directory and file by pattern

Question

I m having problems getting my rsync syntax right and I m wondering if my scenario can actually be handled with rsync  First  I ve confirmed that rsync is working just fine between my local host and my remote host  Doing a straight sync on a directory is successful  Here s what my filesystem looks like  uploads    1260000000      file 11 00 jpg     file 11 01 jpg     file 12 00 jpg   1270000000      file 11 00 jpg     file 11 01 jpg     file 12 00 jpg   1280000000      file 11 00 jpg     file 11 01 jpg     file 12 00 jpg  What I want to do is run rsync only on files that begin with  quot file 11  quot  in the subdirectories and I want to be able to run just one rsync job to sync all of these files in the subdirectories  Here s the command that I m trying  rsync -nrv --include  quot    file 11  jpg quot  --exclude  quot   quot   Storage uploads   website uploads  This results in 0 files being marked for transfer in my dry run  I ve tried various other combinations of --include and --exclude statements  but either continued to get no results or got everything as if no include or exclude options were set  Anyone have any idea how to do this

User · Answer

Here s my  quot teach a person to fish quot  answer  Rsync s syntax is definitely non-intuitive  but it is worth understanding   First  use -vvv to see the debug info for rsync     rsync -nr -vvv --include  quot    file 11  jpg quot  --exclude  quot   quot   Storage uploads   website uploads    sender  hiding directory 1280000000 because of pattern    sender  hiding directory 1260000000 because of pattern    sender  hiding directory 1270000000 because of pattern    The key concept here is that rsync applies the include exclude patterns for each directory recursively  As soon as the first include exclude is matched  the processing stops  The first directory it evaluates is  Storage uploads  Storage uploads has 1280000000   1260000000   1270000000  dirs files  None of them match file 11  jpg to include  All of them match   to exclude  So they are excluded  and rsync ends   The solution is to include all dirs      first  Then the first dir component will be 1260000000   1270000000   1280000000  since they match     The next dir component will be 1260000000   In 1260000000   file 11 00 jpg matches --include  quot file 11  jpg quot   so it is included  And so forth     rsync -nrv --include      --include  quot file 11  jpg quot  --exclude  quot   quot   Storage uploads   website uploads      1260000000  1260000000 file 11 00 jpg 1260000000 file 11 01 jpg 1270000000  1270000000 file 11 00 jpg 1270000000 file 11 01 jpg 1280000000  1280000000 file 11 00 jpg 1280000000 file 11 01 jpg  https   download samba org pub rsync rsync 1

User · Answer

The problem is that --exclude  quot   quot  says to exclude  for example  the 1260000000  directory  so rsync never examines the contents of that directory  so never notices that the directory contains files that would have been matched by your --include  I think the closest thing to what you want is this  rsync -nrv --include  quot    quot  --include  quot file 11  jpg quot  --exclude  quot   quot   Storage uploads   website uploads    which will include all directories  and all files matching file 11  jpg  but no other files   or maybe this  rsync -nrv --include  quot   0-9  0-9  0-9 0000000  quot  --include  quot file 11  jpg quot  --exclude  quot   quot   Storage uploads   website uploads    same concept  but much pickier about the directories it will include

User · Answer

Add -m to the recommended answer above to prune empty directories

User · Answer

rsync include exclude pattern examples               means everything  dir1       transfers empty directory  dir1   dir        transfers empty directories like   dir1    dir2    dir3   etc     file       transfers files whose names start with  file   dir        transfers every path that starts with  dir  like  dir1 file txt    dir2 bar ffaa html   etc     dir        same as above  dir1       does nothing  dir1       does nothing  dir1       transfers  dir1  directory and all its contents like  dir1 file txt    dir1 fooo sh    dir1 fold baar py   etc      And final note is that simply dont rely on asterisks that are used in the beginning for evaluating paths  like    dir   its ok to use them for single folders or files but not paths  and note that more than two asterisks dont work for file names

[linux] Using Rsync include and exclude options to include directory and file by pattern

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