reducing file list bytes transferred

[Matt McCutchen]

On 10/2/07, Peter Salameh <psalameh at ucsd.edu> wrote:
> Thanks for that.  Doesn't the delta-transfer algorithm compare the files
> on sender and receiver?

Correct.

> For the file list, we would only need compare the
> new file list with the last one on the sender

Unison ( http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/ ) is a stateful
two-way synchronizer that does essentially this by default; you can
use Unison even for your one-way copy to get the performance benefit.

Rsync is meant to be stateless, so if it were enhanced to reduce the
amount of file list transferred, I think delta-transferring the file
list would be more in keeping with its mission than saving a "last"
file list.

Matt