--append option description in manpage confusing

[Paul Slootman]

On Wed 01 Aug 2007, Wayne Davison wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Aug 01, 2007 at 04:02:03PM +0200, Paul Slootman wrote:
> > The text in the description of the --append option may lead one to
> > believe that files that are shorter on the receiving side won't be
> > updated, due to the following text:
> 
> That is true as long as you meant to say sending side instead of
> receiving side.  Files that are shorter on the _sending side_ are
> indeed skipped.  There was a bug where files with an identical
> size were getting updated, and I've just checked in a fix for that.

Hmm, I hadn't expected that :-)
I thought that --append simply meant that in cases where the destination
file is shorter, data is simply appended without first checksumming the
existing data, but that transfers would otherwise not be affected in any
way, i.e. be performed in the usual manner as if --append was not
specified. In other words, that --append was simply an optimization
hint.

Perhaps the manpage text needs to be a bit more explicit in this
respect...


Paul Slootman