Is there a way to put comments in an rsync --files-from file?

Question

I have a file that rsync uses as --files-from:

dir1
dir2
dir3

I want to be able to put comments above each dir entry like that:

# my dir1 comment
dir1

#dir2 comment
dir2

#yet another comment
dir3

but rsync complains "No such file or directory"

So far I have tried #,//,--,,SPACE

Is there a way to comment out/disable entries?

Answer 1

Do a grep -v '^#' file > /tmp/filetmp and then launch your rsync on /tmp/filetmp

Depending on your shell, you may be able to avoid the temporary file (this is valid in Bash):

rsync --files-from <(grep -v '^#' file) …

The weird-looking <( … ) syntax is what Bash calls process substitution.