regexp support

[Ben Escoto]

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  LDM> I've just read the thread on --exclude --include syntax plans
  LDM> for rdiff-backup. Please don't follow the rsync route by using
  LDM> their perverted shell globing and rules.

Well, I am almost done with the file selection stuff and have already
added all the perverted globbing stuff.  But regexp lovers can
continue to use --exclude-regexp and --include-regexp and ignore the
new --(include|exclude)(-from-filelist)? switches.

  >> That's what anchors are for. If you want to match from the
  >> beginning then anchor the expression with '^'. At least that's
  >> the way it works in Perl (sorry for mentionning that language
  >> ;-).

  DB> In python, "match" type regex compares must match from the
  DB> beginning. "search" regex compares are the ones to use for what
  DB> you want. I personally think that Python's "match" is a waste of
  DB> space, as search with explicit anchors is more useful.

Ok, although I was inclined in exactly the opposite direction (to
implicitly include $ as well as ^), I changed the behavior of
--(exclude|include)-regexp to use search, so that '--exclude-regexp
foo' will now exclude all the filenames containing 'foo'.

  DB> I think an application specific simple syntax can be more
  DB> "handy" than a general purpose powerful syntax for a simple
  DB> application. I think the rsync extended wildcards are a good
  DB> match to this application.

Yes, agreed.  For instance, now if a user types in --include **.py
--exclude **, this will search through all the directories for files
ending in '.py' and back up only those directories which have .py
files somewhere in side.  This is hard to express via regular
expressions, and it is hard to parse regular expressions to add extra
logic to them.

    Another example:  if someone tries:

        rdiff-backup --exclude bin usr/local /backup

rdiff-backup will notice that "bin" won't match anything in usr/local
and yell until they write:

        rdiff-backup --exclude usr/local/bin usr/local /backup

or maybe (depending on what they meant):

        rdiff-backup --exclude **/bin usr/local /backup

so having a familiar, but more limited, syntax can help the program
run more checks and keep users from doing things they don't intend.


--
Ben Escoto

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