Make it possible to include a file in the filters file

[a-s-z-home]

Hi there,

I was using CrashPlan too and I have converted my repositories to a common duplicacy storage.
To support different backup schedules, I do backup some folders in the user profile using an own snapshot-id, and so I have several snapshots per machine. All snapshots have some different filters and a common filter base set.
I use the preference nobackup_file to exclude these folders in the backup of the user profile.

In my fork at github, I have extended the filter file syntax with a new statement to include another filter file.
Using @<filename>, you can now include other files. Relative paths are supported.
In addition I have changed the exclude behavior for the .duplicacy folder. When using nobackup_file, this folder will not get excluded anymore. I use filters that exclude cache and internal files (see this post).

I will make a pull request soon to include this feature

[towerbr]

If I understood your implementation correctly, it may be the last missing feature for a centralized preferences file.

See this topic:

"repository" init and add options

It seems we all thought the same: an unified preferences file (it’s already possible); just missing an entry for specific filters (the more practical would be one more row in the preferences file).

[a-s-z-home]

Hi,

at the moment the location of the entry point for the filter file is still fixed to .duplicacy/filters. The location is not configurable in the preferences file.

Indeed you can now keep all configuration in a small tree outside the data and use the include-feature to streamline your filter configuration, instead of duplicating all filters into all repository configurations. But you will still need separate configuration directories to use different filters for different snapshots.

[towerbr]

I have extended the filter file syntax with a new statement to include another filter file.
Using @<filename> , you can now include other files.

I thought I could use this to point to different filter files.

But it is undoubtedly an interesting implementation!

When you have made the PR put the link here.

[a-s-z-home]

Filter extension

[michel]

I know this is possible to define a filters file to filter what will or will not be backup for every repository. But I would like to use one global filter for all my repository, using CLI or the new WEB-UI.
I didn’t see anything on that in the documentation. Is it possible ?

[leerspace]

This would also be nice if we could use a global filter file as a base to append repository-specific filters to. My use case would be to exclude files and folders that I never want to back up in any repository (e.g., temporary files, Lightroom thumbnails, macOS files and folders like .DS_Store, and many others that I otherwise have to keep up to date for each repo).

[Christoph]

So is this #planned, @gchen?

[leerspace]

For anyone else who stumbles across this thread, this feature was implemented in v2.2.0 of the CLI.

CLI 2.2.0 has been released (impact on the Web GUI)

One great feature that arrived with this release is the ability to @import other files containing Include/Exclude Patterns into the filters file.