Hi!
Thanks for a great tool!
I came across a small inconsistency and wanted to ask whether it was intented or not:
If one specifies a wildcard inclusion in an include file, and some of the top-level includes are excluded afterwards, these are still listed in the snapshot, even though they have no content.
It is probable easier to understand/explain with an example.
Consider therefore the following directory/file structure:
repo/
src/dir1/dir1_file1.txt
src/dir2/dir2_file2.txt
and an include file include_file_wild.txt:
src/*
and an exclude file exclude_file.txt:
src/dir1
Then calling restic as follows:
EDIT: using restic version: restic 0.17.3 compiled with go1.23.3 on linux/amd64
restic -r ./repo --insecure-no-password init
restic -r ./repo --insecure-no-password backup --files-from include_file_wild.txt --exclude-file exclude_file.txt
restic -r ./repo --insecure-no-password snapshots
will result in an output (removed absolute paths and host info):
repository c4f48141 opened (version 2, compression level auto)
ID Time Host Tags Paths Size
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
617c28e6 2025-04-06 15:37:03 somehost /home/someuser/src/dir1 11 B
/home/someuser/src/dir2
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So on the first sight, it seems like dir1 is included.
However, listing the snapshot shows that the content (and the toplevel dir1) is excluded as desired:
repository c4f48141 opened (version 2, compression level auto)
[0:00] 100.00% 1 / 1 index files loaded
snapshot 617c28e6 of [/home/someuser/src/dir1 /home/someuser/src/dir2] at 2025-04-06 16:05:29.09377055 +0200 CEST by REMOVED filtered by []:
drwxrwxr-x 1000 1000 0 2025-04-06 16:05:27 /src
drwxrwxr-x 1000 1000 0 2025-04-06 16:05:27 /src/dir2
-rw-rw-r-- 1000 1000 11 2025-04-06 16:05:27 /src/dir2/dir2_file1.txt
If I instead take include_file.txt with the following content:
src/
And then the corresponding call:
restic -r ./repo --insecure-no-password backup --files-from include_file.txt --exclude-file exclude_file.txt
restic -r ./repo --insecure-no-password snapshots
yields:
ID Time Host Tags Paths Size
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
617c28e6 2025-04-06 16:05:29 somehost /home/someuser/src/dir1 11 B
/home/someuser/src/dir2
17bff745 2025-04-06 16:05:30 somehost /home/someuser/src 11 B
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
listing again:
drwxrwxr-x 1000 1000 0 2025-04-06 16:05:27 /src
drwxrwxr-x 1000 1000 0 2025-04-06 16:05:27 /src/dir2
-rw-rw-r-- 1000 1000 11 2025-04-06 16:05:27 /src/dir2/dir2_file1.txt
So in principle, the same files are backed up, however in the first case, the listing of the snapshot is misleading.
Is this intented behaviour? I think I would prefer that a directory that is matching the excludes and thus is empty, should not be included in the snapshots overview.
Thanks!
Jochen
PS: If someone wants to play with this, the following script creates the environment and reproduces the issue:
#!/bin/sh -x
mkdir repo
mkdir src
mkdir src/dir1
mkdir src/dir2
echo "dir1_file1" > src/dir1/dir1_file1.txt
echo "dir2_file1" > src/dir2/dir2_file1.txt
echo "src/*" > include_file_wild.txt
echo "src/dir1" > exclude_file.txt
restic -r ./repo --insecure-no-password init
restic -r ./repo --insecure-no-password backup --files-from include_file_wild.txt --exclude-file exclude_file.txt
restic -r ./repo --insecure-no-password snapshots
restic -r ./repo --insecure-no-password ls -long latest
echo "src/" > include_file.txt
restic -r ./repo --insecure-no-password backup --files-from include_file.txt --exclude-file exclude_file.txt
restic -r ./repo --insecure-no-password snapshots
restic -r ./repo --insecure-no-password ls -long latest