Re: Can --exclude patterns contain /-characters?

[Gerhard Poul]

Please specifiy your gtar version number, platform, and operating
system  + version in all your future bug reports.

I've tried it out with gtar 1.13.25 on Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 on an SS10.

> Examples. All the examples are run in the "/home/edonkey/backuptesti"
> directory trying to backup the "/home/edonkey/backuptesti/home/edonkey"
> directory.
> 
> # None of the following patterns work.
> tar cvf temp.tar --totals --exclude=mldonkey/ home/edonkey/
> tar cvf temp.tar --totals --exclude='mldonkey/' home/edonkey/

these don't work.

> tar cvf temp.tar --totals --exclude='mldonkey/*' home/edonkey/

this works.

> tar cvf temp.tar --totals --exclude='/mldonkey' home/edonkey/

doesn't.

> tar cvf temp.tar --totals --exclude='*/mldonkey' home/edonkey/

does.

> # This is similar to the example given in the GNU Tar manual
> http://www.gnu.org/manual/tar/html_chapter/tar_6.html#SEC91 , but doens't
> work either (the latter even gives error, error in the manual -X is used
> with exclude file, when giving patterns it should use --exclude)
> tar cvf temp.tar --totals --exclude='*/mldonkey/*' home/edonkey/
> tar cvf temp.tar --totals -X '*/mldonkey/*' home/edonkey/

This manual is from version 1.12. I would consider it a little bit
outdated... -> last updated November 07, 1998

> I would consider the exclude option broken.

It is/was seriously broken and it is still not perfect (AFAIK I'm
quoting paul here...)

yours,
  gpoul