Re: --rsyncable option undocumented

[Rob Rye]

I have no idea if it is currently supported, planned for continuing support etc.

However, a quick google search yielded plenty of information about what it 
does. See for instance, the first hit I got:

http://beeznest.wordpress.com/2005/02/03/rsyncable-gzip/

Suppose you have a file that you wish to compress and then synchronize between 
two computers using rsync. Then suppose you change the file (or even a single 
small file in a tar.gz archive) on the computer of origin and recompress. 
Without the --rsyncable option the entire new archive may well differ at the 
byte level all through it, forcing rsync to send an entirely new version to the 
remote computer. The --rsyncable option is supposed to change the behavior of 
gzip during compression such that rsync will be able to transmit just the 
changed portions (plus some minimal padding in the area of the archive that 
necessarily changed as a result of the changes in the file) when updating 
rather than having to send the entire compressed file all over again even when 
there is only a small change...

Rpb
On Jun 4, 2010, at 3:41 PM, james keefer wrote:

> I can't find documentation on the --rsyncable option.  I've looked at 
> http://www.gnu.org/software/gzip/
> 
> Yet it seems to be in the code.
> 
> It would really be nice to have an idea from the documentation what this 
> does, and how useful it is, and if it's currently supported, planed for 
> continuing support, etc.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Jim Keefer
> STMicroelectronics
> (303) 381-3666 address@hidden<mailto:address@hidden>
> 1625 S. Fordham St. Ste 500 Longmont, CO 80503
>