GNU bug report logs - #27730
--exclude-dir does ignore subdirectory

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Jiří Kozlovský <mail <at> jkozlovsky.cz>
To: bug-grep <at> gnu.org
Subject: --exclude-dir does ignore subdirectory
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2017 07:51:53 +0200

When I run:
grep -Hrn --color=auto --exclude-dir=idserver/sql anything

Then the subdirectory idserver/sql is not ignored (it's included in the output).

The searching tree is like this:
.
./idserver
./idserver/sql
./idserver/sql/tablename
./idserver/sql/tablename/2013-10-07.sql

So if "./idserver/sql/tablename/2013-10-07.sql" has "anything" in it, then it gets outputted, because exclude-dir not working.

My grep version:
grep (GNU grep) 2.25
Copyright © 2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

My distro:
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS
Release:	16.04
Codename:	xenial

Regards,
George

Message #8 received at 27730 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Jiří Kozlovský <mail <at> jkozlovsky.cz>,
 27730 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#27730: --exclude-dir does ignore subdirectory
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2017 18:03:03 -0700

This does not appear to be a bug, in that grep is operating as documented. When 
searching recursively, --exclude-dir=GLOB will "skip any subdirectory whose base 
name matches GLOB. Ignore any redundant trailing slashes in GLOB." In your case, 
GLOB contains a non-redundant trailing slash, and such a pattern cannot match 
any base name.

To get the behavior that you want, you can use a fancier tool like 'find'.

Message #11 received at 27730 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: "Michael Thielker" <mthielker <at> whttiger.net>
To: 27730 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: --exclude-dir ignoring subdirectory
Date: Fri, 24 May 2019 13:13:40 -0700

[Message part 1 (text/html, inline)]

Message #14 received at 27730 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Michael Thielker <mthielker <at> whttiger.net>
Cc: 27730 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#27730: --exclude-dir ignoring subdirectory
Date: Fri, 24 May 2019 16:02:38 -0700

On 5/24/19 1:13 PM, Michael Thielker wrote:
>     Can grep 2.6.3-3 be used with RHEL 6.10 to resolve our issue in the
>     meantime?

That sounds like a Red Hat issue more than an issue that needs to be 
answered upstream, so I suggest sending a bug report to Red Hat.

As I recall, it is a tricky area since the older grep documentation was 
ambiguous in this area and the implementation was inconstent, and 
nailing things down was bound to make one set of users or another unhappy.

Also see this change in grep 2.23:

  --exclude and related options are now matched against trailing
  parts of command-line arguments, not against the entire arguments.
  This partly reverts the --exclude-related change in 2.22.
  [bug introduced in grep-2.22]

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