pingcap · ran-huang · Jul 3, 2020 · Jul 3, 2020 · Jul 3, 2020 · Jul 3, 2020
diff --git a/TOC.md b/TOC.md
@@ -159,7 +159,7 @@
     + [Configure](/tidb-lightning/tidb-lightning-configuration.md)
     + Key Features
       + [Checkpoints](/tidb-lightning/tidb-lightning-checkpoints.md)
-      + [Table Filter](/tidb-lightning/tidb-lightning-table-filter.md)
+      + [Table Filter](/table-filter.md)
       + [CSV Support](/tidb-lightning/migrate-from-csv-using-tidb-lightning.md)
       + [TiDB-backend](/tidb-lightning/tidb-lightning-tidb-backend.md)
       + [Web Interface](/tidb-lightning/tidb-lightning-web-interface.md)
@@ -430,6 +430,7 @@
   + [Errors Codes](/error-codes.md)
   + [TiCDC Overview](/ticdc/ticdc-overview.md)
   + [TiCDC Open Protocol](/ticdc/ticdc-open-protocol.md)
+  + [Table Filter](/table-filter.md)
 + FAQs
   + [TiDB FAQs](/faq/tidb-faq.md)
   + [TiDB Lightning FAQs](/tidb-lightning/tidb-lightning-faq.md)

diff --git a/br/backup-and-restore-tool.md b/br/backup-and-restore-tool.md
@@ -269,6 +269,25 @@ For descriptions of other options, see [Back up all cluster data](#back-up-all-t
 
 A progress bar is displayed in the terminal during the backup operation. When the progress bar advances to 100%, the backup is complete. Then the BR also checks the backup data to ensure data safety.
 
+### Back up with table filter
+
+To back up multiple tables with more complex criteria, execute the `br backup full` command and specify the [table filters](/table-filter.md) with `--filter` or `-f`.
+
+**Usage example:**
+
+The following command backs up the data of all tables in the form `db*.tbl*` to the `/tmp/backup` path on each TiKV node and writes the `backupmeta` file to this path.
+
+{{< copyable "shell-regular" >}}
+
+```shell
+br backup full \
+    --pd "${PDIP}:2379" \
+    --filter 'db*.tbl*' \
+    --storage "local:///tmp/backup" \
+    --ratelimit 120 \
+    --log-file backupfull.log
+```
+
 ### Back up data to Amazon S3 backend
 
 If you back up the data to the Amazon S3 backend, instead of `local` storage, you need to specify the S3 storage path in the `storage` sub-command, and allow the BR node and the TiKV node to access Amazon S3.
@@ -443,6 +462,24 @@ br restore table \
 
 In the above command, `--table` specifies the name of the table to be restored. For descriptions of other options, see [Restore all backup data](#restore-all-the-backup-data) and [Restore a database](#restore-a-database).
 
+### Restore with table filter
+
+To restore multiple tables with more complex criteria, execute the `br restore full` command and specify the [table filters](/table-filter.md) with `--filter` or `-f`.
+
+**Usage example:**
+
+The following command restores a subset of tables backed up in the `/tmp/backup` path to the cluster.
+
+{{< copyable "shell-regular" >}}
+
+```shell
+br restore full \
+    --pd "${PDIP}:2379" \
+    --filter 'db*.tbl*' \
+    --storage "local:///tmp/backup" \
+    --log-file restorefull.log
+```
+
 ### Restore data from Amazon S3 backend
 
 If you restore data from the Amazon S3 backend, instead of `local` storage, you need to specify the S3 storage path in the `storage` sub-command, and allow the BR node and the TiKV node to access Amazon S3.

diff --git a/table-filter.md b/table-filter.md
@@ -0,0 +1,252 @@
+---
+title: Table Filter
+summary: Usage of table filter feature in TiDB tools.
+category: reference
+aliases: ['/docs/stable/tidb-lightning/tidb-lightning-table-filter/','/docs/stable/reference/tools/tidb-lightning/table-filter/','/tidb/stable/tidb-lightning-table-filter/','/tidb/v4.0/tidb-lightning-table-filter/']
+---
+
+# Table Filter
+
+The TiDB ecosystem tools operate on all the databases by default, but oftentimes only a subset is needed. For example, you only want to work with the schemas in the form of `foo*` and `bar*` and nothing else.
+
+Since TiDB 4.0, all TiDB ecosystem tools share a common filter syntax to define subsets. This document describes how to use the table filter feature.
+
+## Usage
+
+### CLI
+
+Table filters can be applied to the tools using multiple `-f` or `--filter` command line parameters. Each filter is in the form of `db.table`, where each part can be a wildcard (further explained in the [next section](#wildcards)). The following lists the example usage in each tool.
+
+* [BR](/br/backup-and-restore-tool.md):
+
+    {{< copyable "shell-regular" >}}
+
+    ```shell
+    ./br backup full -f 'foo*.*' -f 'bar*.*' -s 'local:///tmp/backup'
+    #                ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+    ./br restore full -f 'foo*.*' -f 'bar*.*' -s 'local:///tmp/backup'
+    #                 ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+    ```
+
+* [Dumpling](/export-or-backup-using-dumpling.md):
+
+    {{< copyable "shell-regular" >}}
+
+    ```shell
+    ./dumpling -f 'foo*.*' -f 'bar*.*' -P 3306 -o /tmp/data/
+    #          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+    ```
+
+* [Lightning](/tidb-lightning/tidb-lightning-overview.md):
+
+    {{< copyable "shell-regular" >}}
+
+    ```shell
+    ./tidb-lightning -f 'foo*.*' -f 'bar*.*' -d /tmp/data/ --backend tidb
+    #                ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+    ```
+
+### TOML configuration files
+
+Table filters in TOML files are specified as [array of strings](https://toml.io/en/v1.0.0-rc.1#section-15). The following lists the example usage in each tool.
+
+* Lightning:
+
+    ```toml
+    [mydumper]
+    filter = ['foo*.*', 'bar*.*']
+    ```
+
+* [TiCDC](/ticdc/ticdc-overview.md):
+
+    ```toml
+    [filter]
+    rules = ['foo*.*', 'bar*.*']
+
+    [[sink.dispatchers]]
+    matcher = ['db1.*', 'db2.*', 'db3.*']
+    dispatcher = 'ts'
+    ```
+
+## Syntax
+
+### Plain table names
+
+Each table filter rule consists of a "schema pattern" and a "table pattern", separated by a dot (`.`). Tables whose fully-qualified name matches the rules are accepted.
+
+```
+db1.tbl1
+db2.tbl2
+db3.tbl3
+```
+
+A plain name must only consist of valid [identifier characters](/schema-object-names.md), such as:
+
+* digits (`0` to `9`)
+* letters (`a` to `z`, `A` to `Z`)
+* `$`
+* `_`
+* non ASCII characters (U+0080 to U+10FFFF)
+
+All other ASCII characters are reserved. Some punctuations have special meanings, as described in the next section.
+
+### Wildcards
+
+Each part of the name can be a wildcard symbol described in [fnmatch(3)](https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_18_13):
+
+* `*` — matches zero or more characters
+* `?` — matches one character
+* `[a-z]` — matches one character between "a" and "z" inclusively
+* `[!a-z]` — matches one character except "a" to "z".
+
+```
+db[0-9].tbl[0-9a-f][0-9a-f]
+data.*
+*.backup_*
+```
+
+"Character" here means a Unicode code point, such as:
+
+* U+00E9 (é) is 1 character.
+* U+0065 U+0301 (é) are 2 characters.
+* U+1F926 U+1F3FF U+200D U+2640 U+FE0F (🤦🏿‍♀️) are 5 characters.
+
+### File import
+
+To import a file as the filter rule, include an `@` at the beginning of the rule to specify the file name. The table filter parser treats each line of the imported file as additional filter rules.
+
+For example, if a file `config/filter.txt` has the following content:
+
+```
+employees.*
+*.WorkOrder
+```
+
+the following two invocations are equivalent:
+
+```bash
+./dumpling -f '@config/filter.txt'
+./dumpling -f 'employees.*' -f '*.WorkOrder'
+```
+
+A filter file cannot further import another file.
+
+### Comments and blank lines
+
+Inside a filter file, leading and trailing white-spaces of every line are trimmed. Furthermore, blank lines (empty strings) are ignored.
+
+A leading `#` marks a comment and is ignored. `#` not at start of line is considered syntax error.
+
+```
+# this line is a comment
+db.table   # but this part is not comment and may cause error
+```
+
+### Exclusion
+
+An `!` at the beginning of the rule means the pattern after it is used to exclude tables from being processed. This effectively turns the filter into a block list.
+
+```
+*.*
+#^ note: must add the *.* to include all tables first
+!*.Password
+!employees.salaries
+```
+
+### Escape character
+
+To turn a special character into an identifier character, precede it with a backslash `\`.
+
+```
+db\.with\.dots.*
+```
+
+For simplicity and future compatibility, the following sequences are prohibited:
+
+* `\` at the end of the line after trimming whitespaces (use `[ ]` to match a literal whitespace at the end).
+* `\` followed by any ASCII alphanumeric character (`[0-9a-zA-Z]`). In particular, C-like escape sequences like `\0`, `\r`, `\n` and `\t` currently are meaningless.
+
+### Quoted identifier
+
+Besides `\`, special characters can also be suppressed by quoting using `"` or `` ` ``.
+
+```
+"db.with.dots"."tbl\1"
+`db.with.dots`.`tbl\2`
+```
+
+The quotation mark can be included within an identifier by doubling itself.
+
+```
+"foo""bar".`foo``bar`
+# equivalent to:
+foo\"bar.foo\`bar
+```
+
+Quoted identifiers cannot span multiple lines.
+
+It is invalid to partially quote an identifier:
+
+```
+"this is "invalid*.*
+```
+
+### Regular expression
+
+In case very complex rules are needed, each pattern can be written as a regular expression delimited with `/`:
+
+```
+/^db\d{2,}$/./^tbl\d{2,}$/
+```
+
+These regular expressions use the [Go dialect](https://pkg.go.dev/regexp/syntax?tab=doc). The pattern is matched if the identifier contains a substring matching the regular expression. For instance, `/b/` matches `db01`.
+
+> **Note:**
+>
+> Every `/` in the regular expression must be escaped as `\/`, including inside `[…]`. You cannot place an unescaped `/` between `\Q…\E`.
+
+## Multiple rules
+
+When a table name matches none of the rules in the filter list, the default behavior is to ignore such unmatched tables.
+
+To build a block list, an explicit `*.*` must be used as the first rule, otherwise all tables will be excluded.
+
+```bash
+# every table will be filtered out
+./dumpling -f '!*.Password'
+
+# only the "Password" table is filtered out, the rest are included.
+./dumpling -f '*.*' -f '!*.Password'
+```
+
+In a filter list, if a table name matches multiple patterns, the last match decides the outcome. For instance:
+
+```
+# rule 1
+employees.*
+# rule 2
+!*.dep*
+# rule 3
+*.departments
+```
+
+The filtered outcome is as follows:
+
+| Table name            | Rule 1 | Rule 2 | Rule 3 | Outcome          |
+|-----------------------|--------|--------|--------|------------------|
+| irrelevant.table      |        |        |        | Default (reject) |
+| employees.employees   | ✓      |        |        | Rule 1 (accept)  |
+| employees.dept_emp    | ✓      | ✓      |        | Rule 2 (reject)  |
+| employees.departments | ✓      | ✓      | ✓      | Rule 3 (accept)  |
+| else.departments      |        | ✓      | ✓      | Rule 3 (accept)  |
+
+> **Note:**
+>
+> In TiDB tools, the system schemas are always excluded regardless of the table filter settings. The system schemas are:
+>
+> * `INFORMATION_SCHEMA`
+> * `PERFORMANCE_SCHEMA`
+> * `METRICS_SCHEMA`
+> * `INSPECTION_SCHEMA`
+> * `mysql`
+> * `sys`
diff --git a/tidb-lightning/tidb-lightning-configuration.md b/tidb-lightning/tidb-lightning-configuration.md
@@ -164,6 +164,9 @@ strict-format = false
 # parallel. max-region-size is the maximum size of each chunk after splitting.
 # max-region-size = 268_435_456 # Byte (default = 256 MB)
 
+# Only import tables if these wildcard rules are matched. See the corresponding section for details.
+filter = ['*.*']
+
 # Configures how CSV files are parsed.
 [mydumper.csv]
 # Separator between fields, should be an ASCII character.
@@ -256,10 +259,6 @@ analyze = true
 switch-mode = "5m"
 # Duration between which an import progress is printed to the log.
 log-progress = "5m"
-
-# Table filter options. See the corresponding section for details.
-#[black-white-list]
-# ...
 ```
 
 ### TiKV Importer
@@ -351,6 +350,7 @@ min-available-ratio = 0.05
 | -V | Prints program version | |
 | -d *directory* | Directory of the data dump to read from | `mydumper.data-source-dir` |
 | -L *level* | Log level: debug, info, warn, error, fatal (default = info) | `lightning.log-level` |
+| -f *rule* | [Table filter rules](/table-filter.md) (can be specified multiple times) | `mydumper.filter` |
 | --backend *backend* | [Delivery backend](/tidb-lightning/tidb-lightning-tidb-backend.md) (`importer` or `tidb`) | `tikv-importer.backend` |
 | --log-file *file* | Log file path (default = a temporary file in `/tmp`) | `lightning.log-file` |
 | --status-addr *ip:port* | Listening address of the TiDB Lightning server | `lightning.status-port` |

diff --git a/tidb-lightning/tidb-lightning-glossary.md b/tidb-lightning/tidb-lightning-glossary.md
@@ -35,12 +35,6 @@ Back end is the destination where TiDB Lightning sends the parsed result. Also s
 
 See [TiDB Lightning TiDB-backend](/tidb-lightning/tidb-lightning-tidb-backend.md) for details.
 
-### Black-white list
-
-A configuration list that specifies which tables to be imported and which should be excluded.
-
-See [TiDB Lightning Table Filter](/tidb-lightning/tidb-lightning-table-filter.md) for details.
-
 <!-- C -->
 
 ## C
@@ -103,6 +97,16 @@ Engines use TiKV Importer's `import-dir` as temporary storage, which are sometim
 
 See also [data engine](/tidb-lightning/tidb-lightning-glossary.md#data-engine) and [index engine](/tidb-lightning/tidb-lightning-glossary.md#index-engine).
 
+<!-- F -->
+
+## F
+
+### Filter
+
+A configuration list that specifies which tables to be imported or excluded.
+
+See [Table Filter](/table-filter.md) for details.
+
 <!-- I -->
 
 ## I