rsync exclude according to .gitignore & .hgignore & svn:ignore like --filter=:C

Question

Rsync includes a nifty option --cvs-exclude to “ignore files in the same way CVS does”, but CVS has been obsolete for years. Is there any way to make it also ex

Answer 1

2018 solution confirmed

rsync -ah --delete 
    --include .git --exclude-from="$(git -C SRC ls-files \
        --exclude-standard -oi --directory >.git/ignores.tmp && \
        echo .git/ignores.tmp')" \
    SRC DST 

Details: --exclude-from is mandatory instead of --exclude because likely case that exclude list would not be parsed as an argument. Exclude from requires a file and cannot work with pipes.

Current solution saves the exclude file inside the .git folder in order to assure it will not affect git status while keeping it self contained. If you want you are welcome to use /tmp.

Answer 2

After the hours of research I have found exactly what I need: to sync destination folder with the source folder (also deleting files in the destination if they were deleted in the source), and not to copy to the destination the files that are ignored by .gitignore, but also not to delete this files in the destination:

rsync -vhra /source/project/ /destination/project/ --include='**.gitignore' --exclude='/.git' --filter=':- .gitignore' --delete-after

Another words, this command completely ignore files from .gitignore, both in source and in the destination. You can omit --exclude='/.git' part if want to copy the .git folder too.

You MUST to copy .gitignore files from the source. If you will use LordJavac's command, the .gitignore will not be copied. And if you create a file in the destination folder, that should be ignored by .gitignore, this file will be deleted despite .gitignore. This is because you don't have .gitignore-files in the destination. But if you will have this files, the files described in the .gitignore will not be deleted, they will be ignored, just expected.

Answer 3

Try this:

rsync -azP --delete --filter=":- .gitignore" <SRC> <DEST>

It can copy all files to remote directory excluding files in '.gitignore', and delete files not in your current directory.

Answer 4

You can use git ls-files to build the list of files excluded by the repository's .gitignore files. https://git-scm.com/docs/git-ls-files

Options:

• --exclude-standard Consider all .gitignore files.
• -o Don't ignore unstaged changes.
• -i Only output ignored files.
• --directory Only output the directory path if the entire directory is ignored.

The only thing I left to ignore was .git.

rsync -azP --exclude=.git --exclude=`git -C <SRC> ls-files --exclude-standard -oi --directory` <SRC> <DEST>

Answer 5

I had a number of very large .gitignore files and none of the "pure rsync" solutions worked for me. I wrote this rsync wrapper script, it fully respects .gitignore rules (include !-style exceptions and .gitignore files in subdirectories) and has worked like a charm for me.

Answer 6

Short answer

rsync -r --info=progress2 --filter=':- .gitignore' SOURCE DEST/

Parameters meaning:

-r: recursive

--info=...: show progress

--filter=...: exclude by the rules listed on the .gitignore file