rsync how to include files that are excluded

Question

I'm trying to set up an rsync that excludes all .* files except for .htaccess but unfortunately, this doesn't work:

rsync -avP --exclude=".*" --include="./.htaccess" ./. user@server:/dir

Is it possible to somehow exclude general exclude rules?

justarobert · Answer 1 · 2011-04-11 00:26:21Z

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Just reverse the order of your arguments:

rsync -avP --include="./.htaccess" --exclude=".*" ./. user@server:/dir

The first matching pattern wins. For more information, see the FILTER RULES section of the rsync(1) manpage.

answered Apr 11 '11 at 0:26

	linux.die.net/man/1/rsync for reference. – Andrew Apr 11 '11 at 1:16
	Unfortunately that didn't work, but dropping the "./" in front of "./.htaccess" did. – Rich Apr 11 '11 at 18:25

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slillibri · Answer 2 · 2011-04-11 00:16:25Z

up vote 0 down vote

You could do the following

find . -type f -name ".*" |grep -v .htaccess > dotfiles

then use

rsync --avP --exclude-from=dotfiles ./. user@server:/dir

answered Apr 11 '11 at 0:16

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2 Answers