rsync - May 2013 - Platform variations with --exclude-from

On Linux, an rsync command and exclude_file contents of:

# cat exclude_file
/etc/alsa
# rsync -a --delete --delete-excluded --exclude-from=exclude_file /etc
server::module

properly excludes /etc/alsa but not any file within /etc's directories that
is named alsa.

On Windows I don't seem to be able to reliably emulate this:

C:\Scripts\Backup\rsyncd>type rsyncd_exclude
/cygdrive/d/$RECYCLE.BIN
/cygdrive/d/Exclude
/cygdrive/d/Inetpub
/cygdrive/d/System Volume Information
C:\Program Files (x86)\cwRsync\bin>rsync -a --delete --delete-excluded
--exclude-from=exclude_file /cygdrive/d server::module

fails to omit these, the only way I get this to work is:

C:\Scripts\Backup\rsyncd>type rsyncd_exclude
*/$RECYCLE.BIN
*/Exclude
*/Inetpub
*/System Volume Information

Which obviously excludes nested objects of the same name as its not anchored.
Anyone know if this can be corrected?
What is the nuance for anchoring patterns to the root of the source in Windows
with the cwrsync build?

Thank you,
jlc

On Mon 27 May 2013, Joseph L. Casale wrote:
> On Linux, an rsync command and exclude_file contents of:
> 
> # cat exclude_file
> /etc/alsa
> # rsync -a --delete --delete-excluded --exclude-from=exclude_file /etc
server::module
> 
> properly excludes /etc/alsa but not any file within /etc's directories
that is named alsa.
Here the exclude file's contents matches the path you've given:
root is /, path is etc so /etc/alsa matches.

> On Windows I don't seem to be able to reliably emulate this:
> 
> C:\Scripts\Backup\rsyncd>type rsyncd_exclude
> /cygdrive/d/$RECYCLE.BIN
> /cygdrive/d/Exclude
> /cygdrive/d/Inetpub
> /cygdrive/d/System Volume Information
> C:\Program Files (x86)\cwRsync\bin>rsync -a --delete --delete-excluded
--exclude-from=exclude_file /cygdrive/d server::module
Here the exclude files are also anchored at the filesystem root,
but the transfer root is /cygdrive/

If you change the excludes to /d/$RECYCLE.BIN etc. (i.e. remove the
leading /cygdrive) then it should work.

That you're seeing this on windows is irrevelant, a similar setup on
linux (e.g. transferring /etc/network and excluding
/etc/network/interfaces) will also fail to do what you want.


Paul