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--as-path <PATH> option skips empty string #1135
Description
Hello wonderful people,
at first, I'm so grateful for this great project. :3
Just a minor thing.
I noticed, that using the '--as-path' cli-option (when creating a backup) doesn't recognize an empty path, while the configuration-option does.
It would be nice, if both had this ability.
Thank you for your time. (:
Activity
aawsome commentedon Apr 24, 2024
Thanks @F3-L1x for opening this issue!
Can you please write how you did run the CLI command?
Did you try to use
--as-path ""?F3-L1x commentedon Apr 24, 2024
Wow, what a fast reply.^^
You're welcome. (:
I tried it different ways:
rustic backup --as-path "" ./I get:rustic backup --as-path="" ./gives:rustic -P local backup --as-path "" ./returns no errors, butrustic -P local snapshotshows an absolute path, rather than a relative.rustic -P local backup ./gives me the result, I wished for.(No errors and showing an (empty) relative path when using snapshot-cmd)
aawsome commentedon Apr 25, 2024
First, am I right that your original intend is to run
rustic backup ./and have it saved as a relative path? I think this should not be addressed using--as-path, but instead the path sanitizing should beenhancedfixed such that it handles a leading.. I'll look after that.Moreover, I think that in fact there shouldn't be a use-case where you need to use an empty
--as-path, but use--as-path=.(with a fixed path sanitizing, see above) or-as-path=/(which already works).Still, digging a bit into details:
About 1. and 2.: I think that this is an issue of clap parsing the CLI arguments. It seems that clap treats an path
""like a not-given path. This explains why this behaves differently than specifyingas-pathin the config profile. However, I cannot reproduce the behavior described in 1.About 3: This is treated by clap like no
--as-pathwould be given which explains this current behavior.aawsome commentedon Apr 25, 2024
Correct handling of paths starting with
.(including the paths.or./) should be fixed by rustic-rs/rustic_core#213fix(paths): Handle paths starting with "." correctly (#213)
F3-L1x commentedon Apr 25, 2024
Yes that's what I was trying to do.
You mean, it should be automatically saved as a relative-path, when using
./as backup source-path?I thought of it beeing two separate things. 1. Selecting the working dir with
./and after it choosing to back it up either as the absolute path or relative by using the--as-path- option.I actually like, that the user can decide, whether it will be saved relative or absolute (even, when using a relative path as a source).
But maybe, I didn't understand you correctly here.
Thanks for you tip with the:
That did the trick. (:
And as you've mentioned,
-as-path='.'/-as-path='./'didn't work properly,I ended up using an empty string, rather than
-as-path=/, as this looked like an absolute path to me (even if when was on Windows).Thank you for your super quick help and I'll try your fix soon. :) 👍
Edit:
It looks like, this has sth. to do with, how powershell handles parameters/arguments (probably discarding empty strings and gobbling the next available argument/option). I get a different output from cmd and msys-bash:
aawsome commentedon Apr 25, 2024
Exactly. This is also the current behavior if you backup a relative path without leading
.. So it should be consistently the identical thing with a leading.- and that's what's implemented in the mentioned PR.If you want to backup an absolute path, you can simply specify the full path.
F3-L1x commentedon Mar 8, 2025
At first - excuse me please, for responding so late (and accidentally closing the issue prematurely).
I've multiple points to add:
tl;dr
I'm (currently) fine with using source (cli-argument or config-value):
'./'and as-path config-value:'', which don't produce any errors or warnings for me.So actually - if there's no need to change the inconsistency mentioned in 2.2. and to prevent the warning of 3. - this issue might therefore become closed again from my side. (:
1. introduction
1.1. unclear problem description
I recently read through the discussion and noticed, I probably hadn't made the distinction between the source-path and the paths inside the repository clear enough.
To rectify this: I was actually talking about the repository-paths - so that I may move the repo to another directory and use it there without any other maintenance.
1.2. test description
I tested the old 0.7 vs. the current 0.95 with permutations of values (existing / non-existing & absolute / relative paths) for source and as-path (for cli-options and config-entries, including the absence of each or both).
While testing I made sure to exclude the repository by "globbing it out".
2. comment from 25.04.24
2.1. cli-issue (powershell)
The powershell-issue mentioned previously, looks like to be fixed by newer pwsh versions (which wasn't installed with windows 10).
So this should behave like bash when updated.
2.2. ERROR: "[...]a value is required for '--as-path[...]"
Under linux (with bash and v0.7 & v0.95): Specifying
--as-path ''produces the ("correct") error-message mentioned under 2.2..This error is probably related to
clap::value_parser!(PathBuf)and it's policy to not allow 'empty' (='') paths.Empty strings are totally valid for clap otherwise.
So collecting the string by clap first and "parsing" the path afterwards could do the trick, if consistency of cli-option
--as-pathand the config-option is desired.3. WARNING: "[...]ignoring error - reading parent snapshot: TreeStackEmptyError"
For v0.95 the usage of
'.'or'./'as argument of source (either cli-option or config-entry) - and without(!) specifyingas-path(both cli-option and config-entry) - the warning mentioned under 3. is shown.The old v0.7 executes without warning.
not related to this issue but noticed while testing:
4. clarity/readability of warnings/errors
Some messages might be hard to understand or could probably be shorter for (especially non-dev) users.
4.1. examples:
Thank you for your awesome work and have a great day!
magrathean-uk commentedon Aug 1, 2026
Opened PR #1840 accepting an explicitly empty backup as-path, with unit and end-to-end regression coverage.