BART Rules File Format

The input files to the bart command are text files. These files consist of lines that specify which files are to be included in the manifest and which file attributes are to be included the report. The same input file can be used across both pieces of BART functionality. Lines that begin with #, blank lines, and lines that contain white space are ignored by the tool.

The input files have three types of directives:

• Subtree directive, with optional pattern matching modifiers

• CHECK directive

• IGNORE directive

Example 6–8 Rules File Format

<Global CHECK/IGNORE Directives>
<subtree1> [pattern1..]
<IGNORE/CHECK Directives for subtree1>

<subtree2> [pattern2..]
<subtree3> [pattern3..]
<subtree4> [pattern4..]
<IGNORE/CHECK Directives for subtree2, subtree3, subtree4>

All directives are read in order, with later directives possibly overriding earlier directives.

There is one subtree directive per line. The directive must begin with an absolute pathname, followed by zero or more pattern matching statements.

Rules File Attributes

The bart command uses CHECK and IGNORE statements to define which attributes to track or ignore. Each attribute has an associated keyword.

The attribute keywords are as follows:

• acl

• all

• contents

• dest

• devnode

• dirmtime

• gid

• lnmtime

• mode

• mtime

• size

• type

• uid

The all keyword refers to all file attributes.

Quoting Syntax

The rules file specification language that BART uses is the standard UNIX quoting syntax for representing nonstandard file names. Embedded tab, space, newline, or special characters are encoded in their octal forms to enable the tool to read file names. This nonuniform quoting syntax prevents certain file names, such as those containing an embedded carriage return, from being processed correctly in a command pipeline. The rules specification language allows the expression of complex file name filtering criteria that would be difficult and inefficient to describe by using shell syntax alone.

For more information about the BART rules file or the quoting syntax used by BART, see the bart_rules(4) man page.