Bash: How can I pass a wildcard as a parameter within a script?

[philhughes]

No idea. There's a load of settings loaded from who knows where that may or may not have an effect, but I've included the output of "shopt" below.

autocd         	off
assoc_expand_once	off
cdable_vars    	off
cdspell        	off
checkhash      	off
checkjobs      	off
checkwinsize   	on
cmdhist        	on
compat31       	off
compat32       	off
compat40       	off
compat41       	off
compat42       	off
compat43       	off
compat44       	off
complete_fullquote	on
direxpand      	off
dirspell       	off
dotglob        	off
execfail       	off
expand_aliases 	on
extdebug       	off
extglob        	on
extquote       	on
failglob       	off
force_fignore  	on
globasciiranges	on
globstar       	off
gnu_errfmt     	off
histappend     	on
histreedit     	off
histverify     	off
hostcomplete   	off
huponexit      	off
inherit_errexit	off
interactive_comments	on
lastpipe       	off
lithist        	off
localvar_inherit	off
localvar_unset 	off
login_shell    	off
mailwarn       	off
no_empty_cmd_completion	off
nocaseglob     	off
nocasematch    	off
nullglob       	off
progcomp       	on
progcomp_alias 	off
promptvars     	on
restricted_shell	off
shift_verbose  	off
sourcepath     	on
xpg_echo       	off

[erind]

You could pass the EXCLUDE variable to the rsync command by using bash arrays for the EXCLUDE string value. Array values do not suffer from the shell's unwanted expansions. Something like:

EXCLUDE=( /* )

and referencing it in the rsync script with ${EXCLUDE[0]} for the first element.

rsync ... "${EXCLUDE[0]}" ...


Take a look at this:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...-and-wildcards

[Paddy Landau]

No idea. There's a load of settings loaded from who knows where that may or may not have an effect, but I've included the output of "shopt" below.

Sorry for the late reply — Ubuntu Forums frequently doesn't send me notifications.

My shopt and yours are identical, so it remains a mystery!

[Paddy Landau]

You could pass the EXCLUDE variable to the rsync command by using bash arrays …

I've already tried this, but it doesn't work.

I've found that whenever I include wildcards or quotation marks, it causes failure. I have no clue why, though.

I ended up using the format that the link from @philhughes gave.

if some_condition; then EXCLUDE='/*'; else EXCLUDE=''; fi
rsync ... ${EXCLUDE:+--exclude="${EXCLUDE}"} ...

This is better than my previous workaround, because it eliminates the need for a temporary file. Why does this work and not any of the other suggestions? I don't know

[erind]

I've already tried this, but it doesn't work.

I've found that whenever I include wildcards or quotation marks, it causes failure. I have no clue why, though.

[...]

It should work. Arrays are the conventional way to pass wildcards to the scripts in these special cases. One advice though, when you declare the arrays you don't quote the wildcards, only the strings with whitespaces in them.

In other similar cases I used to use eval too and it would work great. But nowadays eval has some security issues and that's why it's deprecated in favor of the arrays, which are considered superior.

However, I'm glad you found a solution.

[dinkidonk]

Are you 100% sure that you condition works as it should?

EXCLUDE=""
if [ some_condition ]; then EXCLUDE="--exclude=/*"; fi
# Debug print to verify condition
print ${EXCLUDE}
# Proceed...

[Paddy Landau]

It should work.

What can I say? It doesn't!

… when you declare the arrays you don't quote the wildcards, only the strings with whitespaces in them.

I tried both with and without the quotation marks.

[Paddy Landau]

Are you 100% sure that you condition works as it should?

Yes, I have tested it thoroughly.

[erind]

What can I say? It doesn't!

I tried both with and without the quotation marks.

It works fine on my end. Here it is a proof of concept case:

$ ll
total 24
drwxrwxr-x 2 miri miri 4096 Jul 10 20:12  d1
drwxrwxr-x 2 miri miri 4096 Jul 10 20:35  d2
drwxrwxr-x 2 miri miri 4096 Jul 10 20:28 'dir 1'
drwxrwxr-x 3 miri miri 4096 Jul 10 20:31 'dir 2'
-rwxr-x--- 1 miri miri  190 Jul 10 20:30  rs
-rwxr-x--- 1 miri miri  211 Jul 10 20:31  rs_1
miri@miri-IdeaPad-3:~/Temporary$ 
miri@miri-IdeaPad-3:~/Temporary$ 
miri@miri-IdeaPad-3:~/Temporary$ ll d1
total 0
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 a_1
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 a_2
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 a_3
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 a_4
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 a_5
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 b_1
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 b_2
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 b_3
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 b_4
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 b_5
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 c_1
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 c_2
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 c_3
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 c_4
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 c_5
miri@miri-IdeaPad-3:~/Temporary$ 
miri@miri-IdeaPad-3:~/Temporary$ ll d2
total 0
miri@miri-IdeaPad-3:~/Temporary$

Script below:

#!/bin/bash
set -x

if true 
then
 EXCLUDE=( --exclude=d1/b_* --exclude=d1/c_* ) 
else 
 EXCLUDE='' 
fi

rsync -avz "${EXCLUDE[@]}" d1 d2

## Or with the array values spelled out:
# rsync -avz "${EXCLUDE[0]}" "${EXCLUDE[1]}" d1 d2

After running the above script:

$ ./rs
+ true
+ EXCLUDE=(--exclude=d1/b_* --exclude=d1/c_*)
+ rsync -avz '--exclude=d1/b_*' '--exclude=d1/c_*' d1 d2
sending incremental file list
d1/
d1/a_1
d1/a_2
d1/a_3
d1/a_4
d1/a_5

sent 324 bytes  received 115 bytes  878.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00
miri@miri-IdeaPad-3:~/Temporary$ 
miri@miri-IdeaPad-3:~/Temporary$ ll d2/d1/
total 0
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 a_1
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 a_2
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 a_3
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 a_4
-rw-rw-r-- 1 miri miri 0 Jul 10 20:08 a_5
miri@miri-IdeaPad-3:~/Temporary$

If the directories' names contain whitespaces quote them like so:

#!/bin/bash
set -x

if true 
then
 EXCLUDE=( --exclude="dir 1"/b_* --exclude="dir 1"/c_* ) 
else 
 EXCLUDE='' 
fi

rsync -avz "${EXCLUDE[@]}" "dir 1" "dir 2" 

This is just a simple test to prove that arrays are the way to go. For your needs modify the rsync and EXCLUDE command in the script.

[Paddy Landau]

It works fine on my end. Here it is a proof of concept case:

I believe you. It just doesn't work for me. I've done exactly as you describe, but it doesn't work.

Somehow, we must have different settings somewhere.