Excluding a list of files from tar with spaces in filenames

[Baruch Siach]

Hi Dotan,

On Thu, Feb 04, 2010 at 09:12:54PM +0200, Dotan Cohen wrote:
> I hope there is a bash guru out there today. I need to script a backup
> plan which has a list of directories that should not be backed up.
> Some of these directories have spaces in their filenames. The
> following script works so long as there are no directories with spaces
> in DONT_COPY, however, I cannot figure out what to do to get it to
> work _with_ spaces in filenames:
> 
> #!/bin/bash
> 
> DONT_COPY="
> .adobe/
> File with Spaces
> .bin/google-earth
> Yet Another Annoying Filename
> "
> 
> DONT_COPY_LIST=""
> for pattern in $DONT_COPY ; do DONT_COPY_LIST="$DONT_COPY_LIST
> --exclude=$pattern "; done
> tar -zcvf - * $DONT_COPY_LIST
> 
> 
> Any ideas? Thanks!

How about:

rm -f /tmp/excludes
for pattern in $DONT_COPY ; do echo ${DONT_COPY} >> /tmp/excludes; done
tar -X /tmp/excludes -zcvf - *

Note that this won't archive files with spaces in their file names.

baruch


-- 
                                                     ~. .~   Tk Open Systems
=}------------------------------------------------ooO--U--Ooo------------{=
   - baruch at tkos.co.il - tel: +972.2.679.5364, http://www.tkos.co.il -