similar file names..

[Condarelli Mauro]

David Goodwin wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I've recently started using rsync, and would like to know if there is 
> any way for it to realise that similarly named files are the same.
> 
> e.g. sendmail-8.12.2-i386-1.tgz and sendmail-8.12.2-i386-2.tgz
> 
> (the second one being an update on the first and replaces it, but it is 
> going to be very similar)
Unfortunately this is _not_ true.
Since these are compressed files a few bytes change at the beginning of 
file will result in two almost completely different files.
AFAIK rsync cannot help us here (even barring the problem with the 
"slightly" changed filenames).
I toyed with the idea to enhance rsync to handle compressed archives 
(and ar archives, possibly nested, as required for debian packages), but 
never found the time to actually code the thing.

> 
> I had a quick search on google, and found a few articles, namely :
> 
> http://lists.samba.org/pipermail/rsync/1998-August/000676.html
> 
> and
> 
> http://lists.samba.org/pipermail/rsync/2000-June/002421.html
> 
> Has anything changed since then ?
If the situation is different from what I describe I would really like 
to stand corrected!

> 
> thanks in advance,
> 
> David.
Mauro