rsync exclude arguments held in variable not passing correctly (bourne script)

Archy1 · 07-26-2016, 11:19 PM

I have a shell script with hard coded arguments that works:

Code:

#!/bin/sh
DATE=`date "+%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M"`

rsync -avhPHS -x --exclude="/*/.adobe/" \
	--exclude="/*/.cache/" \
	--exclude="/*/.dbus/" \
	--exclude="/*/.gvfs/" \
	--exclude="/*/.macromedia/" \
	--exclude="/*/.thumbnails/" \
	 --link-dest=/mnt/backup/home/current \
 	/home/ /mnt/backup/home/$DATE

rm -f /mnt/backup/home/current
ln -s $DATE /mnt/backup/home/current
sync

To make things easier as my needs change, I set the rsync arguments to easily changeable variables:

Code:

#!/bin/sh
DATE=`date "+%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M"`
OPT="-avhPHS -x"

EXCLUDE="--exclude=\"/*/.adobe/\" --exclude=\"/*/.cache/\" --exclude=\"/*/.dbus/\" --exclude=\"/*/.gvfs/\" --exclude=\"/*/.macromedia/\" --exclude=\"/*/.thumbnails/\""

SOURCE=/home/
DEST="/mnt/backup/home/${DATE}"
LNDEST="--link-dest=/mnt/backup/home/current"

rsync $OPT $EXCLUDE $LNDEST "$SOURCE" "$DEST" ||
       echo "error(s) occurred during sync"

## "#????????????" removes "--link-dest=" from $LNDEST

rm "${LNDEST#????????????}" ||
     echo "Error: ${LNDEST#????????????} can not be removed"

ln -s "$DATE" "${LNDEST#????????????}" ||
     echo "Error: Creating symbolic link \"${LNDEST#????????????}\" to \"$DATE\" failed"

sync

However rsync does not end up excluding anything. If I place fallowing line in the script:

Code:

echo rsync $OPT $EXCLUDE $LNDEST "$SOURCE" "$DEST"

It returns

Code:

rsync -avhPHS -x --exclude="/*/.adobe/" --exclude="/*/.cache/" --exclude="/*/.dbus/" --exclude="/*/.gvfs/" --exclude="/*/.macromedia/" --exclude="/*/.thumbnails/" --link-dest=/mnt/backup/home/current /home/ /mnt/backup/home/2016-07-26-23:09

Just as I would expect, but rsync seems not to be arware of the exclude arguments.

I have also tried the fallowing additional definitions for EXCLUDE:

Code:

EXCLUDE='--exclude="/*/.adobe/" \
--exclude="/*/.cache/" \
--exclude="/*/.dbus/" \
--exclude="/*/.gvfs/" \
--exclude="/*/.macromedia/" \
--exclude="/*/.thumbnails/" \
'

EXCLUDE="--exclude=\"/*/.adobe/\" --exclude=\"/*/.cache/\" --exclude=\"/*/.dbus/\" --exclude=\"/*/.gvfs/\" --exclude=\"/*/.macromedia/\" --exclude=\"/*/.thumbnails/\""

EXCLUDE='--exclude="/*/.adobe/" --exclude="/*/.cache/" --exclude="/*/.dbus/" --exclude="/*/.gvfs/" --exclude="/*/.macromedia/" --exclude="/*/.thumbnails/"'

EXCLUDE='--exclude="*/.adobe/" --exclude="*/.cache/" --exclude="*/.dbus/" --exclude="*/.gvfs/" --exclude="*/.macromedia/" --exclude="*/.thumbnails/"'

EXCLUDE='--exclude="/*/.adobe" --exclude="/*/.cache" --exclude="/*/.dbus" --exclude="/*/.gvfs" --exclude="/*/.macromedia" --exclude="/*/.thumbnails"'

EXCLUDE='--exclude='/*/.adobe' --exclude='/*/.cache' --exclude='/*/.dbus' --exclude='/*/.gvfs' --exclude='/*/.macromedia' --exclude='/*/.thumbnails''

EXCLUDE="--exclude='*/.adobe' --exclude='*/.cache' --exclude='*/.dbus' --exclude='*/.gvfs' --exclude='*/.macromedia' --exclude='*/.thumbnails'"

EXCLUDE="--exclude=\"/*/.adobe/\" \ --exclude=\"/*/.cache/\" \ --exclude=\"/*/.dbus/\" \ --exclude=\"/*/.gvfs/\" \ --exclude=\"/*/.macromedia/\" \ --exclude=\"/*/.thumbnails/\""

None of these have worked.

What did work was the first script without argument variables, and setting EXCLUDE to equal "--exclude-from=/home/USER/scripts/exclude.list". However, I'd like to maintain the exclude list within the script itself instead of a separate file.

This also works so I know the problem is with the EXCLUDE variable and not one of the other variables:

Code:

rsync $OPT --exclude="/*/.adobe/" --exclude="/*/.cache/" --exclude="/*/.dbus/" --exclude="/*/.gvfs/" --exclude="/*/.macromedia/" --exclude="/*/.thumbnails/" $LNDEST "$SOURCE" "$DEST"

notKlaatu · 07-26-2016, 11:27 PM

This doesn't answer your question, but with that many excludes, you might find it easier to just create a '.exclude' file and tell rsync to ignore everything listed in it. It is line de-limited.

Code:

--exclude-from=$HOME/.exclude

More to your question, try wrapping your exclude var even moar:

Code:

"${EXCLUDE}"

Either way, I think it's probably better to just use a file.

grail · 07-26-2016, 11:27 PM

Have you tried putting them in an array?

Archy1 · 07-27-2016, 12:20 AM

By the way, even if I replace the long exclude list with just "--exclude="/*/.adobe/"", it still doesn't work so I don't think it's a spacing issue. It also doesn't work if I use "--exclude="/USER/.adobe/"" either so the asterisk isn't the problem either.

Having rsync reference ${EXCLUDE} or "${EXCLUDE}" (I believe the latter would cause rsync to treat the exclude list as one argument instead of multiple arguments) didn't work.

Bourne/Almquist/POSIX doesn't support arrays (though I did read this). Of course I could launch the script in bash, though I'd like to run this script on BSD systems (and even then, I could still install bash on those systems but I'd rather just figure out how to make the script work in Bourne.)

I might fall back to:

Code:

EXCLUDE=--exclude-from=/home/USER/scripts/exclude.list

but before that I'd like to try a little longer to make it work in one file.

gda · 07-28-2016, 10:17 AM

Try to change

Code:

EXCLUDE="--exclude=\"/*/.adobe/\" --exclude=\"/*/.cache/\" --exclude=\"/*/.dbus/\" --exclude=\"/*/.gvfs/\" --exclude=\"/*/.macromedia/\" --exclude=\"/*/.thumbnails/\""

in

Code:

EXCLUDE="--exclude=/*/.adobe/ --exclude=/*/.cache/ --exclude=/*/.dbus/ --exclude=/*/.gvfs/ --exclude=/*/.macromedia/ --exclude=/*/.thumbnails/"