Rsync include folders and links but exclude files

Question

I need to copy directory structure from one place to another. I need to copy only folders and exclude files.

Main problem is that i have link-folders !

when I type

rsync -avz -H  /tmp/test/ /tmp/copy/

it copy folders and links-folder properly, also it copy files

when I type

rsync -avz -H -f"+ */" -f"- *" /tmp/test/ /tmp/copy/

it include all folders, exclude files, but it also exclude link-folders.

when I type

rsync -avz -H -f"+ */" -f"- *.txt" /tmp/test/ /tmp/copy/

it create folders and link folders properly but exclude o nly txt files

when I type

rsync -vzrptgoD -L -H -f"+ */" -f"- *" /tmp/test/ /tmp/copy/

it exclude files but converts link-folders in real folder,just concatenate paths.

There are many types of file and i cant just add them like -f"- *.txt"

What should i do? can i add link-folder syntax in -f"+ */" ?

If not is there any other options?

Answer 1

You can't do this directly in rsync, since as you've noticed its filter rules only differentiate directories from "everything else".

However, you can construct a find command to pick the items you want (l for symbolic links, d for directories), and then pass that list to rsync for copying

find src/ \( -type l -o -type d \) -printf "%P\0" |
    rsync --files-from - --from0 -av src/ dst/

Scenario

mkdir /tmp/608951
cd /tmp/608951
mkdir -p src/{test1,test2} dst; ln -s test1 test/link

Demonstration, copying directories and symbolic links from src to dst

find src/ \( -type l -o -type d \) -printf "%P\0" | rsync --files-from - --from0 -av src/ dst/

Output

building file list ... done
link -> test1
test1/
test2/

sent 134 bytes  received 25 bytes  318.00 bytes/sec
total size is 5  speedup is 0.03

Evidence, using ls -R src dst, showing that dst contains only directories and the symbolic link, whereas src also contains files

dst:
link  test1  test2

dst/test1:

dst/test2:

src:
link  test1  test2

src/test1:
file1

src/test2:
file2

If you don't have GNU find, change its -printf "%P\n" to plain -print and also remove --from0 from rsync. The downside is that you won't be able to copy files whose names contain strange characters such as newline.