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

[freeslkr]

Andrew Ferguson <adferguson <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 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".

OK ... I suppose that I thought that it was clear that I meant
"include" and "exclude" in the context of rdiff-backup. For
example, when the option --exclude=xyz is processed on a file
named abc, it is not included simply because it doesn't match
the argument of the --exclude option. Similary
--max-file-size=123 could exclude files larger than 123, but
not include files with size less than 123.

> 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 guess that I'm not understanding what you are saying, but
I'll plow ahead and disagree with you anyway.

>From the description of the Select class in selection.py:

  As mentioned above, each test takes the form of a selection
  function.  The selection function takes an rpath, and returns:

  None - means the test has nothing to say about the related file
  0 - the file is excluded by the test
  1 - the file is included
  2 - the test says the file (must be directory) should be scanned

It seems like size_get_sf() should return None for files smaller
than X with --max-file-size=X. It looks like that's what happens
when --exclude doesn't match (though I don't code in python, so
forgive me if I'm wrong). Hmmm, it looks like I should add an item
to my todo list ....