Help with the prunepaths option with findutils updatedb locate

[Brian Inglis]

On 2021-12-09 07:16, Keith Christian wrote:
> I'm trying to keep the many directories with "OneDrive" in the 
> pathname out of the locatedb file, as I don't care to see them in 
> locate's output, nor bloat the locatedb file.
> I'd appreciate any insight into the prunepaths option for the test 
> case below, (Line 10,) and how to tell prunepaths to ignore paths
> with spaces so that the paths in Lines 5 and 6 below will not be
> included in the locatedb file.

> 2. updatedb (GNU findutils) 4.8.0
> 3. CYGWIN_NT-10.0  3.2.0(0.340/5/3) 2021-03-29 08:42 x86_64 Cygwin

> 4. Unfortunately, on this Windows 10 PC there are 650 unique 
> directory paths with "OneDrive" in them, and these three are the
> most numerous:
> 5. /cygdrive/c/Users/corporatedroid/OneDrive - FoobarCorp/
> 6. /home/c_users_corporatedroid/corporatedroid/OneDrive - FoobarCorp/
> 7. /cygdrive/c/Users/corporatedroid/AppData/Local/Microsoft/FoobarCorp/

> 8. With the one-liner below, we create a small locatedb file
> (/var/locatedb_prune_test) and specify that prunepaths omit the
> '/cygdrive/c/Users/corporatedroid/AppData/Local/Microsoft/OneDrive/ListSync'
> subdirectory:

> 10. F=/var/locatedb_prune_test; echo ; updatedb
> --localpaths='/cygdrive/c/Users/corporatedroid/AppData/Local/Microsoft/OneDrive'
> --output=${F} --prunepaths='/cygdrive/c/Users/corporatedroid/AppData/Local/Microsoft/OneDrive/ListSync'; ls -l ${F}
> 11. -rw-r--r-- 1 corporatedroid Domain Users 26280 Dec 9 06:22 /var/locatedb_prune_test

> 13. Here, we see that the path ending with 'ListSync'
> incorrectly appears in the /var/locatedb_prune_test output despite the
> prunepaths option in line 10:

> 15. F=/var/locatedb_prune_test;locate -d${F} 'ListSync'|cat -n|tail -3
> 16. 33 /cygdrive/c/Users/corporatedroid/AppData/Local/Microsoft/OneDrive/logs/ListSync/Business1/Nucleus-2021-12-09.1317.15440.1.odl
> 17. 34 /cygdrive/c/Users/corporatedroid/AppData/Local/Microsoft/OneDrive/logs/ListSync/Business1/microsoftNucleusTelemetryCache.otc
> 18. 35 /cygdrive/c/Users/corporatedroid/AppData/Local/Microsoft/OneDrive/logs/ListSync/Business1/telemetry-dll-ramp-value.txt

> Any ideas appreciated.

Search:

https://www.mail-archive.com/search?l=cygwin%40cygwin.com&q=updatedb

e.g.

https://www.mail-archive.com/cygwin@cygwin.com/msg146142.html

for operational hints.

For info:

	$ info updatedb
	/--prunepaths=
	$ info -- find -regex

The option --prunepaths takes an argument containing a space separated 
list of find ... -regex (Basic) REs which match *complete* directory 
paths to prune from: if absolute, these start with / and end without 
one; try an argument list where USER=corporatedroid and CORP=FoobarCorp 
like for example:

"/.*[Uu]sers.*$USER.*OneDrive.* /.*[Uu]sers.*$USER.*$CORP.* 
/.*[Uu]sers.*$USER.*ListSync.* /[^[:space:]]*"

or even:

"/.*[Uu]sers.*$USER.*\(OneDrive\|$CORP\|ListSync\).* /[^[:space:]]*"

You may want to be sure those directories are mounted as --localpaths 
rather than --netpaths which have additional requirements:

$ cat /proc/filesystems
         vfat
         exfat
         ntfs
         refs
nodev   smbfs
nodev   nfs
nodev   netapp
         iso9660
         udf
nodev   csc-cache
nodev   unixfs
nodev   mvfs
nodev   cifs
nodev   nwfs
nodev   ncfsd
nodev   afs
nodev   prlfs
$ mount
C:/cygwin/bin on /usr/bin type ntfs (binary,auto)
C:/cygwin/lib on /usr/lib type ntfs (binary,auto)
C:/cygwin on / type ntfs (binary,auto)
C: on /cygdrive/c type ntfs (binary,posix=0,noumount,auto)
...

[Please don't post with extra spaces, step nos (use text refs instead), 
or long command lines, as many devs and some users read with mono fonts 
and short wrap margins e.g 72, 80.
You could use updatedb env vars instead of options for readability.]

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

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