rsync+ patch

[Jos Backus]

On Mon, Aug 13, 2001 at 11:46:24PM +1000, Martin Pool wrote:
> rsync+ is ready to go onto HEAD.  
> 
> Could Jos or somebody else who's used the feature before please
> prepare a few paragraphs for the manpage explaining how they work?
> Either send a patch to the .yo files or just plain text.

There's this, taken from README.rsync+ in the original tarball. Maybe I could
expand on that a bit. I have to admit that I don't have much time this week
because I'm off on a two week vacation next week and I am trying to finish up
a bunch of things at the office. Sorry.

WHAT IS RSYNC+?
--------------
Modification to rsync to allow "batch update".
To do this, rsync+ adds two options to the option set:
   -F (write-batch)
   -f (read-batch) 

Example Usage
-------------
        The following call generates 4 files that encapsulate
          the information for synchronizing the contents of target_dir 
          with the updates found in src_dir 

        $ rsync -F [other rsync options here] \
           /somewhere/src_dir /somewhere/target_dir 

        The generated files are labeled with a common timestamp:
               rsync_argvs.<timestamp>   # command-line arguments
               rsync_flist.<timestamp>   # rsync internal file metadata
               rsync_csums.<timestamp>   # rsync checksums
               rsync_delta.<timestamp>   # data blocks for file update & change

See http://www.ils.unc.edu/i2dsi/unc_rsync+.html for papers and technical
reports  

Known Platforms
---------------
Solaris 2.1.1, AIX 4.3, Linux Redhat 6.0 ----some testing
also, 
  Andrzej Pruszynski reports:
<< 
I compiled rsync+ without major problems on NT4.0 SP3 under Cygwin32 (with
latest cygwin1.dll). Big tests are OK.
I did the same on HP-UX 9.07 with gnu. Small tests are OK too.
>>

Known Flag Interactions
-----------------------
Rsync+ implementation adds -f and -F flags. 
Testing with all combinations of other rsync-supported flags has not been
extensive.

Known limitations under rsync+ code base:
    under -a, -n not working and -z only while creating rsync_delta

-- 
Jos Backus                 _/  _/_/_/        Santa Clara, CA
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josb at cncdsl.com     _/_/   _/_/_/            use Std::Disclaimer;