Mutliple backups into a signle dir

[Milan Krčmář]

Hello.

I am trying to make use of rsync for backup purposes. I want to use it with
the -b switch: it renames older FILE to FILE~ instead of replacing it with
the newer version. This way, only the newest and the second most recent
versions of a file are saved. I want to have more versions.

One approach to this can be inpired by --backup-dir operation. I'd
rather extend the backup functionality to not only add a constant suffix
(the default ~), but to also rotate-out previous backups as it is common in
log files rotation (FILE becomes FILE.1 after every FILE.(x) becomes
FILE.(x+1)). The rotation could be limited by maximal number or age of
copies.

Is it worth of the work for me to patch the rsync sources by some official
way, e.g. to design and implement such an extension? I will try it if you
think it is.

TIA for your opinions.

Milan