Using Filters

Filters tell qFileSync what files to pay attention to and to ignore. If you're a seasoned DOS/Windows user you'll know how to use them already. There are four boxes to specify filters, two for files and two for folders. Files are only matched against the file filters, and folders are only matched against the folder filters.

For a given file or folder to be included in the synchronization, it must satisfy both of the following conditions:

1. It must match an include filter
2. It must not match any exclude filter

If a folder does not match the folder filters, all the files and subfolders inside that folder are always excluded from the sync.

Each box can have multiple filters, each one separated by a semicolon (;). Each filter is a pattern to match against the filename using the standard DOS/Windows wildcards, * and ?. * matches any zero or more characters, while ? matches any one character.

The extension part of the filename is matched separately from the name part; for example, if your spec is "*.htm*", and a file is called "hello. Have a nice day.html", then

• "hello. Have a nice day" is matched against "*", which is a positive match.
• "html" is matched against "htm*", which is also a positive match.
• If either part comes back negative, then it is considered a negative match. The matching is not case-sensitive.

Supported wildcard forms are:

• Star at beginning: e.g. *hello matches hello and abcdhello, but not olleh or helloabcd.
• Star at end: e.g. hello* matches hello and helloabcd, but not hidude or abcdhello.
• Star in middle: e.g. he*en matches heaven and heen, but not crappyheave or hen.
• Stars on end: e.g. *quit* matches quite, noquitting, and "I Quit, I Really Quit!".

You can't put multiple stars in any other form: *a*b*c is invalid, and so is a*b*. Such forms will never match.

You can also use question marks. For instance, ????* forces the filename to be at least four characters long, and mp? will match mp2, mp3, and mpx but not mp22, mp, or mymp3.

FileSync behaves differently if your filespec is missing the dot (.) or if there is nothing on the left or right side of the dot.

• If there is no dot (e.g. "hello") then any extension matches.
• If there is nothing on the left side of the dot (e.g. ".txt") then any filename matches.
• If there is nothing on the right side of the dot (e.g. "hello.") then a filename matches only if it has no extension.

Here are some filter examples:

• * or *.* matches all files
• *.doc;*.txt matches text (.txt) and Word document (.doc) files
• ????*.* matches all files with names at least four characters long
• * - *.mp3 matches all mp3 files that contain the characters " - " (i.e. space-dash-space, the standard separator between the artist and song title)