.. _borg_patterns:

borg help patterns
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
::


        Exclude patterns use a variant of shell pattern syntax, with '*' matching any
        number of characters, '?' matching any single character, '[...]' matching any
        single character specified, including ranges, and '[!...]' matching any
        character not specified.  For the purpose of these patterns, the path
        separator ('\' for Windows and '/' on other systems) is not treated
        specially.  For a path to match a pattern, it must completely match from
        start to end, or must match from the start to just before a path separator.
        Except for the root path, paths will never end in the path separator when
        matching is attempted.  Thus, if a given pattern ends in a path separator, a
        '*' is appended before matching is attempted.  Patterns with wildcards should
        be quoted to protect them from shell expansion.

        Examples:

        # Exclude '/home/user/file.o' but not '/home/user/file.odt':
        $ borg create -e '*.o' backup /

        # Exclude '/home/user/junk' and '/home/user/subdir/junk' but
        # not '/home/user/importantjunk' or '/etc/junk':
        $ borg create -e '/home/*/junk' backup /

        # Exclude the contents of '/home/user/cache' but not the directory itself:
        $ borg create -e /home/user/cache/ backup /

        # The file '/home/user/cache/important' is *not* backed up:
        $ borg create -e /home/user/cache/ backup / /home/user/cache/important