Re: [rdiff-backup-users] Re: Combining --max-file-size and --exclude bug?

[Andrew Ferguson]

On Jan 24, 2009, at 1:23 AM, freeslkr wrote:

> Johannes H. Jensen <joh <at> pseudoberries.com> writes:
>
> > I'm trying to combine --max-file-size and --exclude in the following
> > way to back up everything in /home/joh/tmp/sync1 that's below 128MB:
> >
> > rdiff-backup --max-file-size 134217728 --print-statistics --include
> > '/home/joh/tmp/sync1' --exclude '/*' / /media/Backup/FarSite
> >
> > However rdiff-backup seems to ignore --exclude completely when
> > --max-file-size is specified and tries to backup the whole root
> > filesystem instead! Note that this works perfectly if I omit the
> > --max-file-size argument.
> >
> > Is this the intended behaviour?
>
> I'm not sure what is intended, and I haven't looked at the code,
> but --max-file-size=X behaves like "include files with size less
> than X," which short-circuits on a match. Thus, it works with
> something like
>
>  rdiff-backup --exclude **.bak --max-file-size 134217728
>    /home/joh/tmp/sync1 /media/Backup/FarSite
>
> But one is left wanting in many common situations, like yours. It
> would be much more useful if it behaved like "exclude files with
> size greater than X."


Well, "exclude files with size greater than X" is logically the same  
as "include files with size less than or equal to X".

The problem is that rdiff-backup's selection logic supports only  
include or exlucde (not ignore), and short-circuits. The short- 
circuiting makes sense, but what is needed is ignore. With ignore  
support, what you want is "ignore files with size less than or equal  
to X, exclude files with size greater than X".

I'll add this use case to the IgnoreFiles suggested feature on the Wiki:
http://wiki.rdiff-backup.org/wiki/index.php/IgnoreFiles


Andrew