Question on --backup --backup-dir Switches For Incremental Backs

[Matt McCutchen]

On 1/30/07, Wayne Davison <wayned at samba.org> wrote:
> You're right.  That means that the multi-option version of compare-dest
> is not working as it should.  I need to change the code so that rsync
> creates a new version anytime the most recent version of the file
> differs from the sender's version (while letting the copy-dest and
> link-dest continue to look for an exact match).

While we're on the topic: I was dismayed to discover a while ago that
rsync doesn't allow different kinds of basis dirs in the same command
(e.g., --compare-dest=foo --link-dest=bar).  This restriction is not
stated in the man page, so I assumed at first that rsync could handle
a mix of all three kinds, got really confused reading the code for
try_dests_* , and eventually noticed the check in options.c .  The
restriction should be documented.  It would be even better to figure
out what the semantics ought to be when all three kinds of basis dirs
are mixed and lift the restriction.  I would also still like an option
of whether to itemize with respect to a basis dir (which should handle
directories consistently) or treat the basis dir only as an
optimization.

Matt