Excluding files and directories from tar

Question

Why does the command tar -cvpzf backup_140128.tar.gz --exclude=/backup_140128.tar.gz --exclude=/temp_intel * not exclude the /temp_intel directory?

Answer 1

If you're running this from /, the * will list directories without the leading slash. Try it yourself; do for dir in *; do echo $dir; done.

This is exactly what tar will see, and clearly temp_intel doesn't match the /temp_intel expression given to --exclude. Actually, I rather suspect backup_140128.tar.gz, if present, is also not being excluded.

So three options (I haven't tried any of them, this is theoretical):

1. Force addition of the slash by using /* in your tar command line.
2. Use --exclude=temp_intel so it matches (assuming you don't have any other temp_intel directories you want excluded).
3. Play with the --anchored option to tar, the description wasn't very clear but I think it may remove the leading / before doing the comparison.