You are not logged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.
We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.
Required fields*
How to Edit
- Correct minor typos or mistakes
- Clarify meaning without changing it
- Add related resources or links
- Always respect the author’s intent
- Don’t use edits to reply to the author
How to Format
-
create code fences with backticks ` or tildes ~
```
like so
``` -
add language identifier to highlight code
```python
def function(foo):
print(foo)
``` - put returns between paragraphs
- for linebreak add 2 spaces at end
- _italic_ or **bold**
- indent code by 4 spaces
- backtick escapes
`like _so_` - quote by placing > at start of line
- to make links (use https whenever possible)
<https://example.com>[example](https://example.com)<a href="https://example.com">example</a>
How to Tag
A tag is a keyword or label that categorizes your question with other, similar questions. Choose one or more (up to 5) tags that will help answerers to find and interpret your question.
- complete the sentence: my question is about...
- use tags that describe things or concepts that are essential, not incidental to your question
- favor using existing popular tags
- read the descriptions that appear below the tag
If your question is primarily about a topic for which you can't find a tag:
- combine multiple words into single-words with hyphens (e.g. shell-script), up to a maximum of 35 characters
- creating new tags is a privilege; if you can't yet create a tag you need, then post this question without it, then ask the community to create it for you
lang-bash
excludes="--exclude '$3'", puts literal quotes in the value ofexcludes, they'll stay literal as the shell doesn't parse the results of expansions for shell syntax (it would be a horrible safety issue, e.g. it'd never be possible to deal with strings likeain't soin a variable). Even if it did work, it'd fail for values that themselves contain single quotes. The subsequent$excludeswill then wordsplit on whitespace, breaking any excluded paths that contain whitespace. Use an array instead since you're running Bash, which supports them.=inexcludes = "--exclude '/tmp'". Also thefunctionkeyword is unnecessary and non-standard, justrun_backup() { ...would do to define a functionexcludes="--exclude '$3'"line; then you could have spared us the 30-line code block, and you would have been that much closer to asking a straightforward question — and, ideally, finding a solution yourself. And your “EDIT 2” is terrible. You use four arguments, totaling 64 characters, and three of them are equivalent (strings of letters and slashes), and the fourth one has two special features (space and quote). Simplify! You present a 500+ character output and make no attempt to analyze it. Etc…