Potential new option: --delete-during

[Wayne Davison]

On Mon, Jan 24, 2005 at 03:26:43AM -0600, John Van Essen wrote:
> Users who expect --delete to act before file transfers and want it that
> way to minimize the chance of rsync filling up the disk might be very
> surprised at this new behavior.

True.  I was also thinking about the interactions between old and new
versions, e.g. trying to request the --delete-before behavior using an
old rsync to talk to a new rsync, and I decided that it would be better
to leave --delete (and --delete-excluded) defaulting to the before-
transfer deletion behavior of old.  I've therefore eliminated the
--delete-before option (since it is the default of --delete) and
made --delete-during an official option.

I also added a popt alias for the option "--del" that will make it
easier to type than --delete-during.  The fact that it is a popt alias
means that someone trying to refuse delete options in their rsyncd.conf
file doesn't have to refuse "del" by name; e.g. the existing idiom of
refusing "delete" (which is a safety-oriented short-hand for "delete*")
will still refuse all delete options.

Reactions?  If anyone would like to try this out, just snag the latest
CVS version (or the latest "nightly" tar file from the website).

..wayne..