rsync - May 2008 - How to exclude directories from source with --relative

I have been unable to figure out how to exclude directories that only
exist on the source side when running rsync version 3.0.2 with --relative.

Here is an artificial test that shows my problem in case 3).
Any help would be appreciated.


# mkdir -p /tmp/source/a/b /tmp/source/a/c
# touch /tmp/source/a/b/hello /tmp/source/a/c/world


1) Try mirroring both b/ and c/, this works:

# rsync -avn --relative  /tmp/source/./a/? /tmp/destination
sending incremental file list
created directory /tmp/destination
a/
a/b/
a/b/hello
a/c/
a/c/world

sent 119 bytes  received 30 bytes  298.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00 (DRY RUN)


2) Try excluding b/, this works:

# rsync -avn --relative --exclude b/ /tmp/source/./a/? /tmp/destination
sending incremental file list
created directory /tmp/destination
a/
a/c/
a/c/world

sent 76 bytes  received 23 bytes  198.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00 (DRY RUN)


3) Try excluding a/, this does not work:

# rsync -avn --relative --exclude a/ /tmp/source/./a/? /tmp/destination
sending incremental file list
created directory /tmp/destination
a/
a/b/
a/b/hello
a/c/
a/c/world

sent 119 bytes  received 30 bytes  298.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00 (DRY RUN)


-- 
Stuart Anderson  anderson@ligo.caltech.edu
http://www.ligo.caltech.edu/~anderson

On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 09:46:04PM -0700, Stuart Anderson
wrote:
> # rsync -avn --relative --exclude b/ /tmp/source/./a/? /tmp/destination
That excludes all "b" dirs.  It's safer to exclude
"/a/b/" (anchored and
fully specified).  The simple rule is to exclude the names that rsync
outputs via -v.
> 3) Try excluding a/, this does not work:
> 
> # rsync -avn --relative --exclude a/ /tmp/source/./a/? /tmp/destination
That's because 'a' is an implied directory in the longer path that
you
told rsync to transfer.  Implied directories can't be excluded, but
their attributes can be omitted via --no-implied-dirs.  If you don't
want it in the transfer, don't specify it (and if you're using wild-
cards, specify them in such as way as to avoid matching the dir you
don't want).

..wayne..