Merge pull request #7644 from eoli3n/1.2-maint

Backport of improvements in patterns help

src/borg/archiver.py

@@ -2311,34 +2311,20 @@ class Archiver:
         currently active recursion root. You usually give the recursion root(s)
         when invoking borg and these can be either relative or absolute paths.
 
-        If you give `/absolute/` as root, the paths going into the matcher will
-        look relative like `absolute/.../file.ext`, because file paths in Borg
-        archives are always stored normalized and relative. This means that e.g.
-        ``borg create /path/to/repo ../some/path`` will store all files as
-        `some/path/.../file.ext` and ``borg create /path/to/repo /home/user``
-        will store all files as `home/user/.../file.ext`.
+        Starting with Borg 1.2, paths that are matched against patterns always
+        appear relative. If you give ``/absolute/`` as root, the paths going
+        into the matcher will start with ``absolute/``.
+        If you give ``../../relative`` as root, the paths will be normalized
+        as ``relative/``.
 
         A directory exclusion pattern can end either with or without a slash ('/').
         If it ends with a slash, such as `some/path/`, the directory will be
         included but not its content. If it does not end with a slash, such as
         `some/path`, both the directory and content will be excluded.
 
-        File patterns support these styles: fnmatch, shell, regular expressions,
-        path prefixes and path full-matches. By default, fnmatch is used for
-        ``--exclude`` patterns and shell-style is used for the ``--pattern``
-        option. For commands that support patterns in their ``PATH`` argument
-        like (``borg list``), the default pattern is path prefix.
-
-        Starting with Borg 1.2, discovered fs paths are normalised, have leading
-        slashes removed and then are matched against your patterns.
-        Note: You need to review your include / exclude patterns and make
-        sure they do not expect leading slashes. Borg can only deal with this
-        for some very simple patterns by removing leading slashes there also.
-
-        If followed by a colon (':') the first two characters of a pattern are
-        used as a style selector. Explicit style selection is necessary when a
-        non-default style is desired or when the desired pattern starts with
-        two alphanumeric characters followed by a colon (i.e. `aa:something/*`).
+        Borg supports different pattern styles. To define a non-default
+        style for a specific pattern, prefix it with two characters followed
+        by a colon ':' (i.e. ``fm:path/*``, ``sh:path/**``).
 
         `Fnmatch <https://docs.python.org/3/library/fnmatch.html>`_, selector `fm:`
             This is the default style for ``--exclude`` and ``--exclude-from``.
@@ -2448,12 +2434,35 @@ class Archiver:
             EOF
             $ borg create --exclude-from exclude.txt backup /
 
-        A more general and easier to use way to define filename matching patterns exists
-        with the ``--pattern`` and ``--patterns-from`` options. Using these, you may
-        specify the backup roots (starting points) and patterns for inclusion/exclusion.
-        A root path starts with the prefix `R`, followed by a path (a plain path, not a
-        file pattern). An include rule starts with the prefix +, an exclude rule starts
-        with the prefix -, an exclude-norecurse rule starts with !, all followed by a pattern.
+        A more general and easier to use way to define filename matching patterns
+        exists with the ``--pattern`` and ``--patterns-from`` options. Using
+        these, you may specify the backup roots, default pattern styles and
+        patterns for inclusion and exclusion.
+
+        Root path prefix ``R``
+            A recursion root path starts with the prefix ``R``, followed by a path
+            (a plain path, not a file pattern). Use this prefix to have the root
+            paths in the patterns file rather than as command line arguments.
+
+        Pattern style prefix ``P``
+            To change the default pattern style, use the ``P`` prefix, followed by
+            the pattern style abbreviation (``fm``, ``pf``, ``pp``, ``re``, ``sh``).
+            All patterns following this line will use this style until another style
+            is specified.
+
+        Exclude pattern prefix ``-``
+            Use the prefix ``-``, followed by a pattern, to define an exclusion.
+            This has the same effect as the ``--exclude`` option.
+
+        Exclude no-recurse pattern prefix ``!``
+            Use the prefix ``!``, followed by a pattern, to define an exclusion
+            that does not recurse into subdirectories. This saves time, but
+            prevents include patterns to match any files in subdirectories.
+
+        Include pattern prefix ``+``
+            Use the prefix ``+``, followed by a pattern, to define inclusions.
+            This is useful to include paths that are covered in an exclude
+            pattern and would otherwise not be backed up.
 
         .. note::
 
@@ -2461,11 +2470,29 @@ class Archiver:
             of files using pattern prefixes ``+`` and ``-``. With ``--exclude`` and
             ``--exclude-from`` ONLY excludes are defined.
 
-        Inclusion patterns are useful to include paths that are contained in an excluded
-        path. The first matching pattern is used so if an include pattern matches before
-        an exclude pattern, the file is backed up. If an exclude-norecurse pattern matches
-        a directory, it won't recurse into it and won't discover any potential matches for
-        include rules below that directory.
+        The first matching pattern is used, so if an include pattern matches
+        before an exclude pattern, the file is backed up. Note that a no-recurse
+        exclude stops examination of subdirectories so that potential includes
+        will not match - use normal excludes for such use cases.
+
+        Example::
+
+            # Define the recursion root
+            R /
+            # Exclude all iso files in any directory
+            - **/*.iso
+            # Explicitly include all inside etc and root
+            + etc/**
+            + root/**
+            # Exclude a specific directory under each user's home directories
+            - home/*/.cache
+            # Explicitly include everything in /home
+            + home/**
+            # Explicitly exclude some directories without recursing into them
+            ! re:^(dev|proc|run|sys|tmp)
+            # Exclude all other files and directories
+            # that are not specifically included earlier.
+            - **
 
         .. note::