without using rsync how to skip/exclude few directories during the Incremental backup

Question

Could someone please guide for below logic? How can I exclude a few directories from source path while taking the backup?

#!/bin/bash

source=/home/ec2-user/source
dest=/home/ec2-user/destination

for file in $(find $source -printf "%P\n") ; do
if [ -a $dest/$file ] ; then
       if [ $source/$file -nt $dest/$file ]; then
       echo "Newer file detected, copying .."
       cp -r $source/$file $dest/$file
       else
       echo "File $file exists, skipping"
       fi 
       else
       echo "$file is being copied over to $dest"
       cp -r $source/$file $dest/$file
fi 
done

And more script is added below , but while running this script i am getting an error like:

/home/ec2-user/source is being copied over to /home/ec2-user/destination/home/ec2-user/source
cp: omitting directory ‘//home/ec2-user/source’
/home/ec2-user/source/apple.txt is being copied over to /home/ec2-user/destination/home/ec2-user/source/apple.txt
cp: cannot create regular file ‘/home/ec2-user/destination/home/ec2-user/source/apple.txt//home/ec2-user/source/apple.txt’: No such file or directory
/home/ec2-user/source/durga.txt is being copied over to /home/ec2-user/destination/home/ec2-user/source/durga.txt
cp: cannot create regular file ‘/home/ec2-user/destination/home/ec2-user/source/durga.txt//home/ec2-user/source/durga.txt’: No such file or directory
/home/ec2-user/source/profiles is being copied over to /home/ec2-user/destination/home/ec2-user/source/profiles
cp: omitting directory ‘//home/ec2-user/source/profiles’

 #!/bin/bash
source=/home/ec2-user/source
dest=/home/ec2-user/destination
find $source -path "$source/logs" -prune -o -exec sh -c '
    dest=$0
   for file; do 
           if [ -a "$dest/$file" ] ; then
                if [ "$source/$file" -nt "$dest/$file" ]; then
                     echo "Newer file detected, copying .." >&2
                     cp  "$source/$file" "$dest/$file"
                else
                    echo "File $file exists, skipping" >&2
                fi
         else
                echo "$file is being copied over to $dest" >&2
                cp  "$source/$file" "$dest/$file"
          fi
  done' "$dest" {} +

Answer 1

There are several problems with your scripts. They find not only files but also directories, which is not what you want. They don't create the destination directory before copying. The way you use find is not robust and will fail if file names contain spaces (blanks, tabs, newlines...). Try something like (not tested):

#!/bin/bash

source=/home/ec2-user/source
dest=/home/ec2-user/destination

find "$source" -path "$source/logs" -prune -o -printf '%P\0' |
while IFS= read -r -d '' file; do
  if [ -d "$src/$file" ]; then
    if ! [ -d "$dst/$file" ]; then
      echo "Creating directory $dst/$file"
      mkdir -p "$dst/$file"
    fi
    continue
  fi
  if [ -a "$dest/$file" ] && [ "$source/$file" -ot "$dest/$file" ]; then
    echo "File $file exists, skipping"
    continue
  fi
  if [ -a "$dest/$file" ]; then
    echo "Newer file detected, copying .."
  else
    echo "$file is being copied over to $dest"
  fi 
  mkdir -p "$(dirname "$source/$file")"
  cp -f "$source/$file" "$dest/$file"
done

Note that first building the lists of files and directories, next creating all directories at once and finally copying all files at once would probably be faster.

Note also that if you can use tar or something equivalent to create an archive of all files to copy, and then unpack this archive in the destination directory, things would probably be easier and faster. Especially if you have GNU tar because it has several handy options for backups.