Question

What is the simplest way to remove a trailing slash from each parameter in the ‘$@’ array, so that rsync copies the directories by name?

rsync -a --exclude='*~' "$@" "$dir"

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The title has been changed for clarification. To understand the comments and answer about multiple trailing slashes see the edit history.

Answer 1

You can use the ${parameter%word} expansion that is detailed here. Here is a simple test script that demonstrates the behavior:

#!/bin/bash

# Call this as:
#   ./test.sh one/ two/ three/ 
#
# Output:
#  one two three

echo ${@%/}