reducing file list bytes transferred

[Peter Salameh]

I agree that rsync being stateless is a good thing.  I have found it very
reliable and predictable for years.  I certainly wouldn't change to unison
(which apparently is currently not maintained) just to speed up the file
list transfer.

Delta-transfer of the file list seems to make good sense for rsync,
especially for one-way backup involving lots of files.  Is there any
chance that this will happen, or any way to gauge interest in this?

Peter


> 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