On Tue, Nov 27, 2001 at 05:00:14PM -0500, Lenny Foner wrote: ... > [ . . . ] > > I'm pretty sure that rsync won't use up memory for excluded files so it > would make no difference. > > ...though this also implies (since you say it'd probably use basically > the same mechanism internally) that it -would- nonetheless keep info > around for the entire run about each file that -was- going to be/had been > transferred, yes?
Yes, that is a limitation in the current implementation. Long ago the original author Andrew Tridgell proposed a rewrite to avoid that but he never got to it. > This is a separate problem from how the files are > selected, but I've lost track of what the right solution here should > be, except for dropping each directory's info after you leave it--- > which would presumably not necessarily be easy if you're getting the > file list in arbitrary order via --files-from, but might be easier > if they were being generated via rsync's current traversal algorithm. I'm not clear on the details of why rsync keeps some information in memory for every file, but I don't think it has anything to do with order or per-directory limitations. > In any event, I -hope- that the memory issue is cleanly separable > from the issue of how files get selected; this might be a good time > to at least ponder the issue, if --files-from might soon exist. I believe the two are cleanly separable. - Dave
