Rsync all directories that start with a specific digit

file-copyrsyncwildcards

I have directory loaded with thousands of sub directories:

/home/tmp/
          1
          12
          123
          1234
          2345
          234
          3456
          345
          34

Each subdirectory in turn has hundreds of subdirectories that I want to rsync if the first level subdirectory matches…

What I need is a way to copy/rsync only the directories that start with a given digit [1-9]…

What I think I want is basically something that would allow me to use wild cards to match

rsync -rzvvhP remotehost:/home/tmp/1* /home/tmp/

I want rsync to sync up the 

/home/tmp/1/
/home/tmp/12/
/home/tmp/123/
/home/tmp/1234/

directories and any child subdirectories they have but not any of the first level directories that start with a different digit…

/home/tmp/234/
/home/tmp/2345/
........./3*/
........./4*/ etc..

What I've tried:

rsync -rzvvhP --exclude='*' --include-from=1.txt remotehost:/home/tmp/ /home/tmp/

where 1.txt contains:

1
12
123
1234

When I do this with 2.txt though rsync still seems to run through all the directories that start with 1 and 3 etc…

How can I do this so that I can have one command to rsync only the directories that start with any given digit?

Best Answer

What you proposed should actually work:

rsync -rzvvhP remotehost:/home/tmp/1\* /home/tmp/

(You can get away with not quoting the * in most circumstances, as the pattern remotehost:/home/tmp/1\* is unlikely to match any file so it will be left alone with most shell setups.)

Your attempt with --exclude='*' failed because the first match applies, and your first match for everything (*) says to exclude.

See this guide for some general principles about rsync filters. Here, to include only directories beginning with 1 at the toplevel, and copy everything in included subdirectories, include /1 then exclude /*.

rsync -rzvvhP --include='/1' --exclude='/*' remotehost:/home/tmp/ /home/tmp/
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