Backup directories with space in directory name

[Karl Auer]

On Sat, 2016-12-31 at 10:14 -0600, Jack McGee wrote:
> Thanks all.  It succesfully backed up the My Documents folder, but
> of course, now I want to have it also backup
> 
> /usr/local, /var /etc /opt /home
> [...]
> How should I tweak script further to allow that?

The simplest approach is to manually build the tar command:

   dir1="/this/is/the/first"
   dir2="/this/is/the/second"
   dir3="/this/is/the/third"
   
   [...]

   tar cfv "$dest/$archive_file" "dir1" "dir2" "dir3"

Alternatively, use bash arrays, here's a link:

http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/06/bash-array-tutorial

Array processing in a loop will test your knowledge of quoting :-)

You could also look into tar's -T option.

There are so many backup solutions out there that it is probably a
waste of effort to roll your own for anything complicated (though it's
a great learning experience).

If you do keep going with this project, I suggest you investigate
rsync, in particular the --link-dest and --hard-links options. You
might also look at the old, but still excellent, rdiff-backup utility.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
http://twitter.com/kauer389

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