How to exclude rsync excludes from delete?

Question

I'm using rsync to sync files across multiple machines, using the following:

rsync -az -e "ssh -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no" \
  --delete --delete-excluded --force --exclude=.git  --exclude=.bundle \
  --exclude=tmp --exclude=log/* --exclude=*.log --exclude=*.pid \
  user@host:/path/to/src/ /var/build/dest

I want to exclude all log files from being transferred from the source to destination, and delete all existing ones on the destination. So I'm using --exclude=*.log with --delete-excluded which works great.

But I want to keep a certain log file intact on the destination. I want an --exclude-from-delete option.

Is this possible with rsync?

Answer 1

The "protect" filter should accomplish just what you want:

          protect, P specifies a pattern for protecting files from deletion.

Just specify the following filter before the relevant excludes:

--filter='P my-specific-logfile.log'

(Notice the space after the letter P.)