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In this code, the excludespec variable is expected to match all it substring, but it appears to evaluate the to the actual files matching it when it is executed, rather than pass its exact representation to the tar command using it.

excludespec=${PWD##*/}\_$USER\_hostname.bkcd_backup*

The end result is the archive being created does not match the exclusion list so tar outputs:

tar: .: file changed as we read it

Is the string defining it doing something I don't know about?

Here is the code:

#!/bin/sh
# bkcd - backup current directory in situ

DMY_M() {
  date +%Y%m%d_%H%M
}

timestring=$(DMY_M)
echo `pwd` - $timestring > .bkcdspec  
filename=${PWD##*/}\_$USER\_`hostname`.bkcd_backup.$timestring.tar.gz    
excludespec=${PWD##*/}\_$USER\_`hostname`.bkcd_backup*
fullexclude="$excludespec"tar.gz    
echo excludespec - $excludespec
echo filename - $filename
echo fullexclude - $fullexclude    
tar -cpzf $filename --exclude=$fullexclude .
rm .bkcdspec
2
  • Assuming that /bin/sh points to /bin/dash (it usually does), your script isn't a bash script, it's a dash script.
    – Dennis
    Jan 21, 2013 at 1:48
  • 1
    You don't need to ask the same question twice Jan 21, 2013 at 2:22

1 Answer 1

2

Wildcarding is done after variable substitution. To paste in the literal value of a substitution but prevent wildcarding, use double quotes around the $var reference.

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