WIP: Add dot_ignore file functionality to ignore specified patterns #5

aelafifi · 2019-07-23T15:12:39+02:00

aelafifi commented

2019-07-23 15:12:39 +02:00

First-time contributor

Add support for dot ignore files (like: .gitignore)

File name is .gcpignore by default, and could be changed using -i or --ignore

Note: this doesn't support the syntax starting with ! to exclude some special patterns from the old defined ones.

Add support for dot ignore files (like: .gitignore) File name is `.gcpignore` by default, and could be changed using `-i` or `--ignore` > Note: this doesn't support the syntax starting with `!` to exclude some special patterns from the old defined ones.

mcy commented

2019-08-04 11:49:17 +02:00

Hi Ahmed,

Thank you so much for your contribution, it is much appreciated!

My first remark is that -i is already a GNU cp option (--interactive);
since a long-term goal of GCP is to have CLI compatibility with GNU cp, I would
like to find something else.

Regarding your design, I like the idea of being able to exclude dotfiles, but I
think it would be even better to implement generic exclude/include option, like
rsync does:

--exclude=PATTERN       exclude files matching PATTERN
--exclude-from=FILE     read exclude patterns from FILE
--include=PATTERN       don't exclude files matching PATTERN
--include-from=FILE     read include patterns from FILE

(rsync's --files-from=FILE would also be a nice feature to have at some
point.)

I'm not saying that we should implement all of these at once, but do you think
you could change your code to an implementation of --exclude-from? You
would then call gcp --exclude-from=.gcpignore or something like that.

If we then implement --exclude, we could use --exclude='.*' to ignore all
dotfiles, just like with rsync.

We don't have to handle the whole rsync pattern language right now, we can
start with a basic language that matches files in the directory being copied,
like you did in your code.

Thoughts?

Matteo

Hi Ahmed, Thank you so much for your contribution, it is much appreciated! My first remark is that `-i` is already a GNU cp option (`--interactive`); since a long-term goal of GCP is to have CLI compatibility with GNU cp, I would like to find something else. Regarding your design, I like the idea of being able to exclude dotfiles, but I think it would be even better to implement generic exclude/include option, like `rsync` does: --exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE --include=PATTERN don't exclude files matching PATTERN --include-from=FILE read include patterns from FILE (rsync's `--files-from=FILE` would also be a nice feature to have at some point.) I'm not saying that we should implement all of these at once, but do you think you could change your code to an implementation of `--exclude-from`? You would then call `gcp --exclude-from=.gcpignore` or something like that. If we then implement `--exclude`, we could use `--exclude='.*'` to ignore all dotfiles, just like with rsync. We don't have to handle the whole rsync pattern language right now, we can start with a basic language that matches files in the directory being copied, like you did in your code. Thoughts? Matteo

aelafifi commented

2019-09-10 11:53:08 +02:00

First-time contributor

Hi Matteo,

Sorry for being late, and thank you for your notes.

I just have a comment about the convention, the idea is to have some feature like Git's .gitignore files, but the flag --exclude-from=FILE suggests that you should provide some specific file path, but actually it searches for that file name into each directory while walking deep, and exclude files with the specified patterns relatively to the directory which contains the file. Exactly like what we do do with .gitignore file.

Don't you think that --exclude-from=FILE will be confusing somehow.
Anyway I've updated it to --exclude-from, If we just can find more expressive name 😄

Hi Matteo, Sorry for being late, and thank you for your notes. I just have a comment about the convention, the idea is to have some feature like Git's `.gitignore` files, but the flag `--exclude-from=FILE` suggests that you should provide some specific file path, but actually it searches for that file name into each directory while walking deep, and exclude files with the specified patterns relatively to the directory which contains the file. Exactly like what we do do with `.gitignore` file. Don't you think that `--exclude-from=FILE` will be confusing somehow. Anyway I've updated it to `--exclude-from`, If we just can find more expressive name :smile:

This pull request is marked as a work in progress.

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