A question about rsync

[Martin Pool]

On 31 May 2004, Guo jing <guojingxx at hotmail.com> wrote:
> hello,
>  I am a student in China.I like the linux and usually use the rsync to 
> backup my documents. Last week when I use it,I find a question I want to 
> discuss with you.
> 
>   The condition is like this: The source file that I want to rsync to 
> another computer is 129M before I start the rsync. During the running of 
> the rsync,the file was changed and became to about 50M, then the rsync 
> ended. When I view the destination, I found that the file was 129M. And 
> there were some contents of the files added when the rsync was running. 
>   
>  After that, I do some tests about the rsync:
> 
>       1. After I start the rsync to backup a file, I delete the file 
> during the rsync is running, I found the file can been backuped normally.
>       2. While the rsync is backuping a file name sourfile (50M), I add 
> some content by the command "cat addfile >> sourfile" to enlarge the file 
> to 100M. After the rsync finished.I found the file is still 50M.
>     
>    The question is that , how the rsync copy a file to another computer at 
> the first time ? My attitude is that it remenbers the physical blocks the 
> file used when the rsync scaned. Then ,rsync will send the blocks to the 
> destination no matter if the file or the block has changed. So, is that 
> right?? Who can tell me how the rsync decide which contents should to send 
> to the destiation?

I'm not sure I understand the question, sorry.  

If you change a file while it is being copied by rsync you may end up
with undefined results on the other end.  There is not much that can
be done about this without os-level version control.

> 
>  Sorry, my English is very poor. Thanks for your read and answer!!
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> ???????????????????????????? MSN Messenger:  http://messenger.msn.com/cn  
> 
-- 
Martin 
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