How can I rsync a set of subdirectories?

Solution 1:

Possibility 1

Using the shell expansion¹ instead of rsync's filter rules, you can do as follows:

a. To include all bin dirs in the top_dir hierarchy:

rsync -av -R top_dir/**/bin/ destination_path

Here -R is a rsync² parameter standing for relative. man rsync explains it as

Use relative paths. This means that the full path names specified on the command line are sent to the server rather than just the last parts of the filenames. This is particularly useful when you want to send several different directories at the same time.

but in essence it means that the directory structure is preserved.

** is a shell globbing pattern and searches recursively for directories named bin under top_dir. So with the above example the command line gets expanded to:

rsync -av -R top_dir/proj1/bin/ top_dir/proj2/bin/ destination_path

b. If you only want to include bin dirs one level below the project dir, just use a single * (that works with "ancient" shells too!):

rsync -av -R top_dir/*/bin/ destination_path

¹ You need a recent bash version (>4) and activate recursive globbing via shopts -s globstar. With zsh recursive globbing is default.

² rsync version v3.2.3 protocol version 31 on Linux.

Possibility 2

Only using rsync's filter rules you need:

a. To include all bin dirs in the top_dir hierarchy:

rsync -av -m --include='**/' --include='**/bin/**' --exclude='*' top_dir/ destination_path

The first include rule might not be obvious³ but guarantees that all directories (note the trailing /) are searched, the second adds everything in bin directories, and the exclude rule excludes everything else. -m makes sure that empty directories are not copied.

b. To include only one level below the project dir:

rsync -av -m  --include='/*/' --include='/*/bin/***' --exclude='*' top_dir/ destination_path

Using *** syntax of rsync >= 2.6.7. The leading / in the patterns represent top_dir, otherwise the patterns are matched against the end of the file path.

³ Search for /some/path/this-file-will-not-be-found in man rsync