rsync --delete with confirmation?

[EntropyReduction]

I want to synchronize sets of files (e.g. from or to flash memory). rsync is powerful, but --delete option is dangerous.

Anyone know whether there's a way to do --delete interactively, i.e. get rsync or some near equivalent to ask (y/n, in a console window) before deleting?

[quixote]

man rsync

doesn't show an interactive delete option. But what you can do is use a -n option, for a simulated run, and a -v option for verbose output, and then pipe that output to a file. eg

rsync -avn source target 1>rsync-dryrun.txt 2>rsync-dryrun-errors.txt

That way you could check whether it plans on deleting too much.

[gmargo]

I usually throw in a "--max-delete=20" (or some other reasonable value) to limit potential damage.

[EntropyReduction]

I'm working on this: work in progress....anyone more expert on bash scripting thn me (which would be just about everyone, comments/changes welcome

#!/bin/bash

function processFilesInFolders
{
#$1 is source $2 is destination 

#bit of sanity checking

ARGS=2 # Number of arguments expected.
E_BADARGS=85 # Exit value if incorrect args passed.

 if [ $# -ne $ARGS ]
 then
  echo "usage: rsync_wrap souc_folder destination_folder"
  return E_BADARGS
 fi 

 if [ -z "$2" ]  ||  [ -z "$1" ]
 then
  echo "empty or missing parameters"
  echo "usage: rsync_wrap souc_folder destination_folder"
  return E_BADARGS
 fi 

 if [! -d "$2"] ||   [ ! -d "$1" ]
 then
  echo "parameter not a folder"
  echo "usage: rsync_wrap souc_folder destination_folder"
  return E_BADARGS
 fi 

 destLen=`expr length $2  + 2`
# destLen=`expr $destLen+ 2`
#echo path len $pathLen

 dirlist=$(find $2 -type d)
 for aDirec in $dirlist ; 
 do

   aDirecExclBase=`expr  substr $aDirec $destLen 200`
   fileList=$(ls $aDirec)

   for aFile in $fileList ;
    do
      if [  -f "$aDirec/$aFile" ] # exclude folders
        then
        if [ ! -e "$1/$aDirecExclBase/$aFile" ] # is it not in source?
          then
          read -p "$aDirecExclBase/$aFile is in destination but not source. Delete in destination (y/n)?"
          [ "$REPLY" == "y" ] || rm  -i "$aDirecExclBase/$aFile"
        fi  # if [ ! -e "$1/$aDirecExclBase/$aFile" ]
#     echo $aDirecExclBase/$aFile
      fi # if [  -f "$aDirec/$aFile" ] # exclude folders
    done  # after for aFile in $fileList 
 
 done # after for aDirec in $dirlist 
}

[aeiah]

you should wrap your code in [code] tags, or [PHP] tags maybe to make it more readable.

i like the idea of doing a dry run first. and then using that output in a rm -i command

how's this for a one liner:

rm -ri `rsync -anv --delete $source/ $destination/ | grep deleting | sed 's/deleting /$destination/\/g'`

[EntropyReduction]

you should wrap your code in [code] tags, or [PHP] tags maybe to make it more readable.

Sorry. Newbie. Learning. Done.

> i like the idea of doing a dry run first. and then using that output in a rm -i command

how's this for a one liner:

rm -ri `rsync -anv --delete $source/ $destination/ | grep deleting | sed 's/deleting /$destination/\/g'`

Neat.

I'll be back to you once I've taught myself enough sed to understand it.

[EntropyReduction]

i like the idea of doing a dry run first. and then using that output in a rm -i command

how's this for a one liner:

rm -ri `rsync -anv --delete $source/ $destination/ | grep deleting | sed 's/deleting /$destination/\/g'`

Okay, fiddled with the sed replacement. Need "" instead of '' to get the variable parsed,
and since it's possible file names have spaces, need (?) to quote them; leaving out the rm -i :

rsync --delete --dry-run  --recursive --verbose  $source/   $destination/ | grep deleting | sed "s:deleting :$destination/:g" |  sed "s/\(^.*\)$/\'\1\'/g"

Okay, that gets me output on stdout like

'/home/alan/Documents/temp/dest/test (copy).txt'

and

 rm -i '/home/alan/Documents/temp/dest/test (copy).txt'

works

But when I tuck rm -i in front of rsync etc:

  rm -i `rsync --delete --dry-run  --recursive --verbose  $source/   $destination/ | grep deleting |   sed "s:deleting :$destination/:g" | sed "s/\(^.*\)$/\'\1\'/g" `

somehow rm is getting the file names broken at white space ( it can't find files

/home/alan/Documents/temp/dest/test
(copy).txt
)

I tried wrapping file names in double quotes, same result.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

[gmargo]

Don't use backticks. Use a pipeline into xargs.

.... | xargs -d '\n' rm -ri

[EntropyReduction]

Don't use backticks. Use a pipeline into xargs.

.... | xargs -d '\n' rm -ri

Doesn't work for me:

(a) I need to not add my own quotes with sed:

.... | sed "s/\(^.*\)$/\'\1\'/g"  | ....

because it looks like xargs adds its own quoting, and

(b) Looks like all files are sent to rm without waiting for interactive response from user.

[EntropyReduction]

This works:

rsync --delete --dry-run  --recursive --verbose  $source/   $destination/ | \
     grep deleting | sed "s:deleting :$destination/:g" |  \
     sed "s/\(^.*\)$/\'\1\'/g"  |  \
     xargs -n 1 -p -r  rm -i

xargs -n 1: "Use at most max-args arguments per command line"
- p: "Prompt the user about whether to run each command line and read
a line from the terminal"
-r "If the standard input does not contain any nonblanks, do not run
the command. Normally, the command is run once even if there is
no input. This option is a GNU extension."

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.