Rsync exclude and include problem; include file in excluded directory

The "trick" is to not exclude the uptime-kuma directory, but its contents.

With an include pattern of error.log and an exclude pattern of uptime-kuma/*, you would include the file uptime-kuma/error.log before excluding everything else in that subdirectory.

With uptime-kuma/ instead of uptime-kuma/*, you would exclude the directory, and rsync would never look inside it.

rsync -av --delete \
    --include=error.log \
    --exclude='uptime-kume/*' \
    ~netadmin/docker-data ~netadmin/temp/

I hope this is an equivalent test:

$ tree
.
`-- topdir
    |-- file-1
    |-- file-2
    |-- file-3
    |-- file-4
    |-- file-5
    `-- subdir
        |-- file-a
        |-- file-b
        |-- file-c
        |-- file-d
        |-- file-e
        `-- myfile

2 directories, 11 files

$ rsync -av --include=myfile --exclude='subdir/*' topdir/ copydir
sending incremental file list
created directory copydir
./
file-1
file-2
file-3
file-4
file-5
subdir/
subdir/myfile

sent 436 bytes  received 171 bytes  1,214.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00

$ tree copydir
copydir
|-- file-1
|-- file-2
|-- file-3
|-- file-4
|-- file-5
`-- subdir
    `-- myfile

1 directory, 6 files

As a tip: You will get the reasoning behind why rsync includes or excludes things if you use -vv.

This is using the "wrong" exclusion pattern:

$ rm -r copydir
$ rsync -avv --include=myfile --exclude='subdir/' topdir/ copydir
sending incremental file list
[sender] hiding directory subdir because of pattern subdir/
created directory copydir
delta-transmission disabled for local transfer or --whole-file
./
file-1
file-2
file-3
file-4
file-5
total: matches=0  hash_hits=0  false_alarms=0 data=0

sent 326 bytes  received 211 bytes  1,074.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00

This is using the "correct" exclusion pattern:

$ rm -r copydir
$ rsync -avv --include=myfile --exclude='subdir/*' topdir/ copydir
sending incremental file list
[sender] hiding file subdir/file-a because of pattern subdir/*
[sender] hiding file subdir/file-b because of pattern subdir/*
[sender] hiding file subdir/file-c because of pattern subdir/*
[sender] hiding file subdir/file-d because of pattern subdir/*
[sender] hiding file subdir/file-e because of pattern subdir/*
[sender] showing file subdir/myfile because of pattern myfile
created directory copydir
delta-transmission disabled for local transfer or --whole-file
./
file-1
file-2
file-3
file-4
file-5
[generator] risking file subdir/myfile because of pattern myfile
subdir/
subdir/myfile
total: matches=0  hash_hits=0  false_alarms=0 data=0

sent 436 bytes  received 307 bytes  1,486.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00

I have found an other method. I use

cp --parents

option to copy only the specific files I want in the excluded directories and also to keep the directory structure.