tar.info: exclude

Choosing

wildcards

files

Back to Software Index

6.4 Excluding Some Files
========================

To avoid operating on files whose names match a particular pattern, use
the `--exclude' or `--exclude-from' options.

`--exclude=PATTERN'
     Causes `tar' to ignore files that match the PATTERN.

   The `--exclude=PATTERN' option prevents any file or member whose
name matches the shell wildcard (PATTERN) from being operated on.  For
example, to create an archive with all the contents of the directory
`src' except for files whose names end in `.o', use the command `tar
-cf src.tar --exclude='*.o' src'.

   You may give multiple `--exclude' options.

`--exclude-from=FILE'
`-X FILE'
     Causes `tar' to ignore files that match the patterns listed in
     FILE.

   Use the `--exclude-from' option to read a list of patterns, one per
line, from FILE; `tar' will ignore files matching those patterns.  Thus
if `tar' is called as `tar -c -X foo .' and the file `foo' contains a
single line `*.o', no files whose names end in `.o' will be added to
the archive.

   Notice, that lines from FILE are read verbatim. One of the frequent
errors is leaving some extra whitespace after a file name, which is
difficult to catch using text editors.

   However, empty lines are OK.

`--exclude-vcs'
     Exclude files and directories used by following version control
     systems: `CVS', `RCS', `SCCS', `SVN', `Arch', `Bazaar',
     `Mercurial', and `Darcs'.

     As of version 1.26, the following files are excluded:

        * `CVS/', and everything under it

        * `RCS/', and everything under it

        * `SCCS/', and everything under it

        * `.git/', and everything under it

        * `.gitignore'

        * `.cvsignore'

        * `.svn/', and everything under it

        * `.arch-ids/', and everything under it

        * `{arch}/', and everything under it

        * `=RELEASE-ID'

        * `=meta-update'

        * `=update'

        * `.bzr'

        * `.bzrignore'

        * `.bzrtags'

        * `.hg'

        * `.hgignore'

        * `.hgrags'

        * `_darcs'

`--exclude-backups'
     Exclude backup and lock files.  This option causes exclusion of
     files that match the following shell globbing patterns:

    .#*

    *~

    #*#


   When creating an archive, the `--exclude-caches' option family
causes `tar' to exclude all directories that contain a "cache directory
tag". A cache directory tag is a short file with the well-known name
`CACHEDIR.TAG' and having a standard header specified in
`http://www.brynosaurus.com/cachedir/spec.html'.  Various applications
write cache directory tags into directories they use to hold
regenerable, non-precious data, so that such data can be more easily
excluded from backups.

   There are three `exclude-caches' options, each providing a different
exclusion semantics:

`--exclude-caches'
     Do not archive the contents of the directory, but archive the
     directory itself and the `CACHEDIR.TAG' file.

`--exclude-caches-under'
     Do not archive the contents of the directory, nor the
     `CACHEDIR.TAG' file, archive only the directory itself.

`--exclude-caches-all'
     Omit directories containing `CACHEDIR.TAG' file entirely.

   Another option family, `--exclude-tag', provides a generalization of
this concept.  It takes a single argument, a file name to look for.
Any directory that contains this file will be excluded from the dump.
Similarly to `exclude-caches', there are three options in this option
family:

`--exclude-tag=FILE'
     Do not dump the contents of the directory, but dump the directory
     itself and the FILE.

`--exclude-tag-under=FILE'
     Do not dump the contents of the directory, nor the FILE, archive
     only the directory itself.

`--exclude-tag-all=FILE'
     Omit directories containing FILE file entirely.

   Multiple `--exclude-tag*' options can be given.

   For example, given this directory:

     $ find dir
     dir
     dir/blues
     dir/jazz
     dir/folk
     dir/folk/tagfile
     dir/folk/sanjuan
     dir/folk/trote

   The `--exclude-tag' will produce the following:

     $ tar -cf archive.tar --exclude-tag=tagfile -v dir
     dir/
     dir/blues
     dir/jazz
     dir/folk/
     tar: dir/folk/: contains a cache directory tag tagfile;
       contents not dumped
     dir/folk/tagfile

   Both the `dir/folk' directory and its tagfile are preserved in the
archive, however the rest of files in this directory are not.

   Now, using the `--exclude-tag-under' option will exclude `tagfile'
from the dump, while still preserving the directory itself, as shown in
this example:

     $ tar -cf archive.tar --exclude-tag-under=tagfile -v dir
     dir/
     dir/blues
     dir/jazz
     dir/folk/
     ./tar: dir/folk/: contains a cache directory tag tagfile;
       contents not dumped

   Finally, using `--exclude-tag-all' omits the `dir/folk' directory
entirely:

     $ tar -cf archive.tar --exclude-tag-all=tagfile -v dir
     dir/
     dir/blues
     dir/jazz
     ./tar: dir/folk/: contains a cache directory tag tagfile;
       directory not dumped

problems with exclude