rsync - Sep 2008 - DO NOT REPLY [Bug 5758] New: '**' does not match empty strings

https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5758

           Summary: '**' does not match empty strings
           Product: rsync
           Version: 3.0.3
          Platform: x86
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P3
         Component: core
        AssignedTo: wayned@samba.org
        ReportedBy: dieter@plaetinck.be
         QAContact: rsync-qa@samba.org


man rsync, section "FILTER RULES" says:
"use ’**’ to match anything, including slashes."

This is incorrect.  '**' does not match empty strings.
The description should be:
"use ’**’ to match any non-empty string, including slashes."
This would be more in line with what '*' does ( "a ‘*’ matches any
non-empty path component (it stops at slashes)." )


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https://bugzilla.samba.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5758





------- Comment #1 from wayned@samba.org  2008-09-14 21:46 CST -------
"**" certainly does match empty strings, even at the start of a path
(e.g.
**/foo will exclude a "foo" at the root of the transfer).  If
you're seeing an
issue, please be specific in what is not working for you.


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------- Comment #2 from dieter@plaetinck.be  2008-09-20 11:41 CST -------
Hi, seems like you're right.  Sorry for bothering you :-)

On the other hand, the manpage says:
"a ’*’ matches any non-empty path component (it stops at slashes)."
Although '*' seems to match non-empty and empty(!) filename components.
Eg: 'foo*' matches the file foo and foobar.

~$ mkdir test-src test-dest; touch test-src/foo test-src/foobar
~$ rsync -av --exclude 'foo*' test-src/ test-dest
building file list ... done

sent 74 bytes  received 20 bytes  188.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00

I've tested this on rsync 2.6.9 and 3.0.3.
Isn't this a mistake in the manpage then?


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wayned@samba.org changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|NEW                         |RESOLVED
         Resolution|                            |FIXED




------- Comment #3 from wayned@samba.org  2008-10-11 11:36 CST -------
The "non-empty" qualifier in the manpage was certainly deceiving, and
has been
removed.


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