rsync-ing compressed archives

[Dave Dykstra]

On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 08:39:23PM +0100, Mauro Condarelli wrote:
> Hi there!
> I'm quite happily using rsync.
> There is only one case where I couldn't figure out how to use it
> efficently:
> I sometimes have large compressed files (either .tar.gz or .zip) that
> I need to keep synchronized. The exploded files are usually not
> available on the machines i use for rsync (to keep everything unpacked
> would mean wasting a lot of space on the server).
> The problem is that even if I change slightly the content of the
> archive (just add a file) the compressed form will be almost
> completely different making rsync algorythm practically useless.
> Is there any easy way to tell the daemon to unpack (or just
> uncompress) a compressed archive before doing the matching?
> The problem is not severe with .zip archives, but .gz and .bz2 are
> really inefficient.
> 
> Thanks in advance for any hint
> Mauro

No, sorry rsync can't do it.  I answered a similar question just last
week.  Many people have asked but nobody has made a patch.  It's probably
doable but not trivial.

- Dave Dykstra