Re: exclude error "cannot match" but dir exists

[Mike Fleetwood]

On Wed, 13 May 2020 at 15:42, RL <address@hidden> wrote:

>
> rufus@Air-PC:~/WK/testin> rdiff-backup -v3   --include
> /home/rufus/WK/testin/dummy --exclude **   /home/rufus/WK/testin
> /home/rufus/WK/testout2
> Fatal Error: Switches missing or wrong number of arguments
> See the rdiff-backup manual page for more information.
> rufus@Air-PC:~/WK/testin>
>
> And how is "--exclude **" (last example fail) wrong? Switches? Arguments?
>

The shell will be expanding ** to all the files in the current
directory.  To see what is actually passed to the command run:

    echo MYCOMMANDLINE

To prevent the shell performing file name pattern matching expansion,
enclose that parameter in single quotes thus '**'.  I suggest you read
the EXPANSION section and Pattern Matching sub-section of the bash
manual.

    man bash


Mike