How to exclude local files?

[ewan-escience]

I know I can add a root directory for local files that start with a /, but how can I exclude them from being checked in the first place? And how about relative paths that don't start with a /?

[nobkd]

Maybe you could use --scheme multiple times with everything but file? Not sure, if this is the proper way...

Something like: lychee --scheme https --scheme http --scheme mailto [...]

[thomas-zahner]

Yes that's a possibility. Alternatively, you can also use --exclude as described here. Maybe you skipped over it as it's titled "Excluding Links". But links in this context also include links to files, more precisely URIs. It supports regular expressions, so for example: lychee README.md --dump --exclude '^file:///'.

Note that --dump is very useful for debugging if you exclude/include patterns work as intended. Remove it for actual link checking.

Excluding files which start with /: --exclude '^file:///'
Excluding files which don't start with /: --exclude '^file://[^/]'
Excluding files in general /: --exclude '^file://'

[ewan-escience]

Thank you both for your quick responses! Both suggestions do work, but the --scheme solution feels a little cleaner to me. And indeed, the --dump flag is very useful, thanks for bringing that up!