rsync delete single file from the target folder

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi

We want to delete a single file from the destiantion directory using rsync. Is it possible to do this ? or Do we have any alternate approaches in rsync( for ex applying some filters ..etc)

For ex:
-----------------------------------------------
Source (Folder)
a.txt
b.txt

Dest(Folder)
a.txt
b.txt
c.txt
d.txt
------------------------------------------------
We want to delete only "c.txt" file from the destination not "d.txt".
Please share your thoughts.

2

afaik that's not possible, sure you could filter d.txt, but then it wont be transferred too

maybe you could exclude all --exclude='*' and include your file --include=c.txt, use rsync with --delete, and specify a "/" at the end of the folders, but use --dry-run to test

3

This may accomplish what you're trying to do, or at least point you in the right direction:

rsync -avz --exclude="d.txt" --delete --delete-during --progress --stats /dir1 /dir2

sending incremental file list
./
deleting c.txt

Number of files: 4
Number of files transferred: 0
Total file size: 0 bytes
Total transferred file size: 0 bytes
Literal data: 0 bytes
Matched data: 0 bytes
File list size: 76
File list generation time: 0.002 seconds
File list transfer time: 0.000 seconds
Total bytes sent: 88
Total bytes received: 15

sent 88 bytes  received 15 bytes  206.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00

Hope this helps.

4

Thanks for your response. In this scenario its working fine.

But here we need to know the list of exclude files before. And also i noticed that it is not only performing deletion, if there are any updates/add in the source.. it is trying sync those files as well.

Is there any way to restrict the updates/add files? And also is there any option to exlucde all files except particular file for deletion?

I tried with the below option but it didn't work

rsync -avz --exclude="*" --include="c.txt" --delete --delete-during --progress --stats  /source/  /dest/

Please share your ideas....
Thanks you..

---------- Post updated at 05:56 PM ---------- Previous update was at 10:46 AM ----------

--include and --exclude options order makes difference.

I tried with below order

rsync -avz  --include="c.txt" --exclude="*"  --delete --delete-during --progress --stats /source/ /dest/

It works and the operation is only on the specified files.

I have one more question.. how can we achieve the same functionality for multiple files with different source and destination using single rsync command?(instead of running rsync multiple times).

Thanks !