I’d like to exclude all files that may have any 1 of a number of file extensions for multiple (all?) of my backup jobs. So the ‘Default Options’ section on the top-level settings page is a good place to do so. Unfortunately, when editing as text, I can add multiple --exclude= entries (each on their own line) but when saving, I get an error indicating ‘duplicate option exclude’.
While it might make sense to prevent the exclude option as a default option (how would a specific job override this ?), I can save 1 default exclude value but not multiple - which is a shame.
I’m running version 2.0.4.23_beta_2019-07-14 on Ubuntu 18.04. So far, my test drive is going well. Nice tool.
edit after 1 of my jobs ran at 5pm: warning: exclude is being ignored. Explains why it wasn’t in the drop-down list. For the reason I gave above?
But I still think it might be useful to provide similar logic - perhaps something similar to .gitignore - if present in the root directory of the backup source, apply to that instance of the job… maybe? convenient to copy such a file over to each backup job’s root path, rather than remembering to manually edit each job’s filter set…
Ignore file like .gitignore is one of the longer feature request discussions, and links to several other ones. Because there’s a very large backlog, with work limited by volunteer resources, let’s look for alternatives.
The need for multiple –exclude options can be avoided by letting regular expressions get the alternatives.
Inside parentheses, vertical bars represent “alternation”, so -[\.(gif|jpg|png)$] might exclude those images.
Filters discusses what you’re trying to do. The square braces indicate regular expression. “-” is --exclude.
The plus and minus are (I think) mainly applicable to cases that put all filters on a single line, for example:
You cannot specify filters in both the file and on the commandline. Instead, you can use the special --replace-filter , --append-filter , or --prepend-filter options to specify filters inside the parameter file. Each filter must be prefixed with either a + or a - , and multiple filters must be joined with ; .
Another option, depending on how you create jobs, is to have a template backup job that you import and customize. Standard things might include your destination setup, authentication, password, AND filters.
Beyond the regular expression alternation idea, I’m not sure how much of this is tested to see if it works.
I suspect the following code is what complains, but my JavaScript isn’t good enough to suggest change:
You could possibly file an issue about the error, but issues are backlogged as well, so it may take awhile. Personally, I’m also not sure why Settings doesn’t have --exclude and --include on the dropdown, but my attempt to look through the JavaScript seemed to show that they’re done differently from regular options.
Thanks for the very quick response, yes, I’ve used a number of both non-RE and RE to do the filtering. More of a convenience - rather than have to add the same set of filter expressions to each job’s filter set, was looking to take advantage of global settings. But the silver lining is, the ability to edit as text the filter set makes copy & paste simple, and somewhat scalable (same action regardless of # of expression entries…).
I ought to take a look at possibly contributing some coding, been doing SE since 1984. It’s been a while since my last OSS contribution…
Development contributors are welcome and encouraged, as are volunteers of all types, even non-coders. Perhaps something in the issues or feature requests will be of special interest to you, or a good first item.
