rsync replaces symlinks on destination

[Matt McCutchen]

On 9/3/07, aaa aaa aaa aaa <ai_chat_bot at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I need
> rsync to skip updating the destination file if it is a symlink that
> points to a file that is identical to the source file.

Rsync doesn't have an option to do that.  If the option existed, it
would be called --keep-links.  Using the current rsync, here are some
things you might try:

1. Exclude the offending symlinks.

2. Rearrange the destination so that only symlinks to directories are
used, and pass --keep-dirlinks.

3. Instead of following symlinks in the destination, create reverse
symlinks in the source and read through those symlinks using
--copy-links.

4. If you care only about rsync not mangling destination symlinks
pointing to data *identical* to the source data, "diff -q" the source
and destination to get a list of paths at which the contents differ
and make rsync process only those paths using --files-from.

If you explain more concretely what you were hoping to accomplish by
having rsync follow symlinks in the destination, I might be able to
suggest a better approach.

Matt