Using --fuzzy

[Joe]

I'm going to have to digest this for awhile. It makes sense, but I have
to work on it a bit before I understand it enough to actually apply it.

This would make a good howto article.

Thanks to both of you.
On 11/17/2014 04:56 AM, Matthias Schniedermeyer wrote:
> On 16.11.2014 18:38, Karl O. Pinc wrote:
>> On 11/16/2014 03:53:12 PM, Joe wrote:
>>> I have a lot of files (and directories) (up to a few hundred at a
>>> time)
>>> that I get from various sources. Some time after I get them (after
>>> they
>>> are already backed up), I often have to move them around and 
>>> normalize
>>> their names.
>>>
>>> When I do this, rsync sees them as unrelated to the copies of these
>>> files which are already on the backup destination. 
>> I don't know if it suits your use case but
>> you could consider using hardlinks.
> It should be noted that using hardlinks has 1 major caveat:
> Order
>
> It only saves a copy when the new hardlinks appears in the hierachy 
> AFTER the original file.
>
> (This is true for "incremental"-mode (default for >=3.0). It might work 
> differently for <3.0 or "--no-inc-recursive"-mode, but i haven't tried.)
>
> Otherwise rsync will copy the "new" file and later hard link the 
> "old"-file to the "new"-file and not the other way around.
>
> So i personally use a directory '.z' in the root of a hierarchy where 
> each file has an additional hardlink, so i can move files around in the 
> hierarchy however i want.
> That way rsync "see"s the '.z'-directory first and acts accordingly.
>
>
> Such a directory can be created after the fact.
> Make a directory that is LAST in sort-order. Assuming plain ASCII 
> filesnames:
> mkdir zzzzzzzzzzz
> Then link all files into that directory and rsync (Don't forged adding 
> "-H").
> Then rename it to be first in sort-order (on both sides!):
> mv zzzzzzzzzzz .z
>
> And after you have made the necessary changes to your procedures to make 
> the additonal hardlink you are free to move around files without rsync 
> having to copy them each time they are moved.
>
> After deleting files you can use:
> find .z -type f -links 1 -delete
> to find and delete files that don't have an additional hardlink.
>
>
>
>