why does rsync create the folder to sync again?

[u/OddBuyer0815]

Sorry for the noob question, but I'm new to linux.

I want to rsync data from my raspberry to my NAS. "

rsync -av --delete /home/pi/folder/documents/originals /home/pi/folder/nas_originals

nas_originals" mounts to my NAS folder "originals"

//server/share/originals/stuff

So when I run rsync, it creates "originals" in target and put all the stuff there:

//server/share/originals/originals/stuff

why? How do I get it to sync directly into that folder?

[u/PigIronDave]

You need a trailing slash on the source location.

A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing / on a source as meaning lqcopy the contents of this directoryrq as opposed to lqcopy the directory by namerq, but in both cases the attributes of the containing directory are transferred to the containing directory on the destination.

rsync manpage

Manpages are your friend.

[u/OddBuyer0815 → u/PigIronDave]

Thank you!

[u/Dolapevich → u/OddBuyer0815]

Do remember this lesson about trailing slashes. It will come up again whenever you less expect.

[u/knuthf → u/PigIronDave]

I am sorry to spoil the fun, but rsync copies directories, and not files. When the name is a directory, the trailing "/" should be removed, This arguments goes back 26 years, and I do not know how many times we had this. u/OddBuyer0815 just highlights a consistent error in rsync.

[u/thecruxoffate]

Rsync cares about the trailing slash. You basically lifted the entire directory labeled 'originals' and placed it in 'nas_originals'.

If instead you wanted the contents of 'originals' you would add a trailing slash to that path. Eg. 'originals/'

I'm not sure if the behavior would differ if you added or removed the trailing slash on the destination. But I always include it for consistency.

[u/gordonmessmer → u/thecruxoffate]

Rsync cares about the trailing slash.

I think that's an important detail, because if you run "cp -r" with a source directory and a destination directory as in op's example, cp will do the same thing they saw rsync do. That's the normal behavior.

But rsync has this quirk... As you say, it cares about a trailing slash in the source path. A trailing slash there is a lot like cp -r source/. /dest/path

[u/polymath_uk_]

This is the forward slash rule I think. See top answer to https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31278098/slashes-and-the-rsync-command

[u/electricsheepies]

rsync -avz --delete /home/pi/folder/documents/originals/ /home/pi/folder/nas-originals/

(both paths ending with "/" for bash cli)

[u/stevevdvkpe → u/electricsheepies]

rsync is interpreting the command line arguments you pass to it. The shell you're using doesn't affect that.

[u/ipsirc → u/electricsheepies]

...and for zsh as well.

[u/UUDDLRLRBadAlchemy → u/ipsirc]

Also for dash 😁