rsync - May 2002 - a problem I'm having with rsync-4.5.4

Howdy,

I'm trying to update (rsyncronize) a system that I've placed in another
state where I have replaced the networker with a new version that's
pointing to a new and different server.

I'm running with the following parameters: /usr/lsd/SunOS.5.7/bin/rsync -n
-vvacrRlpogtuxz --stats --progress . sjsun5x:/usr
--exclude-from=/excludes_usr

When I run rsync I ask rsync to exclude anything */nsr* in an excludes
file. Some of the files are excluded like the binaries from /usr/bin/nsr*
but other files are not being excluded that match the pattern */nsr*.

I have a log file but it's fairly big so I'm cutting it down to size.

Can anyone comment on this please? Is this a George problem or an rsync
problem? Maybe I'm not reading the output correctly? Where it says ...file
is newer, does that mean that rsync will update the file or not?

Regards and thanks for the help,

George...





exclude file:

#
# filex to be EXCLUDED FROM copying...
#

*gmon.out

local/bin/oraclebackup*
local/bin/perl

*/nsr*

lsd

gls/cm/registry
gls/lc/os/portable/C

include/sys/mtio.h



the log file (part of it):

.
.
.
excluding directory lib/nsr because of pattern */nsr*
.
.
.
excluding file sbin/nsr_shutdown because of pattern */nsr*
excluding file sbin/nsr_support because of pattern */nsr*
excluding file sbin/nsradmin because of pattern */nsr*
.
.
.
share/man/man1m/nsr.1m is newer
share/man/man1m/nsr_crash.1m is newer
share/man/man1m/nsr_shutdown.1m is newer
share/man/man1m/nsradmin.1m is newer
share/man/man1m/nsralist.1m is newer
share/man/man1m/nsrarchive.1m is newer
share/man/man1m/nsrcap.1m is newer
.
.
.

On Sun, 5 May 2002 George.R.Goffe@seagate.com wrote:
> When I run rsync I ask rsync to exclude anything */nsr* in an excludes
> file.
Since '*' doesn't match '/', that will only match an nsr*
name one level
deep in the transferred tree (i.e. /usr/FOO/nsr*, where FOO is any
directory in /usr).  If you just use "nsr*", it will match the name at
any level, which is probably what you want.  If you really didn't want
to exclude nsr* items at the bottom-most level (i.e. in /usr in this
case), you could use "**/nsr*" which ensures that the exclusion was
occurring at least one directory deep (since ** _does_ match '/').

I note that the man page is a little deceiving on this issue.  While it
says that a pattern that includes a '/' is matched against the whole
path+filename, it also says that only patterns that start with a '/' are
matched against the start of the path, and all others are matched
against the end.  So, it could be construed that a pattern of
"foo/bar"
should exclude any file bar in a directory named foo (e.g. both /foo/bar
and /baz/foo/bar).  The man page should be improved a bit to say that
both an initial and an interior slash cause us to match from the start
of the path+filename, so "foo/bar" is the same as
"/foo/bar".

..wayne..