rsync - Apr 2004 - --hard-link option now uses the first existing file - Excellent!

With regard to this NEWS item from 2.6.1pre-1:

* The --hard-link option now uses the first existing file in the
  group of linked files as the basis for the transfer.  This
  prevents the sub-optimal transfer of a file's data when a new
  hardlink is added on the sending side and it sorts alphabetically
  earlier in the list than the files that are already present on the
  receiving side.

I am delighted to report that this fix works as advertised.

An rsync that used to take 3+ hours now takes only 30 minutes
since it no longer unnecessarily retransfers 200+ MB worth of
files just because of the (bad) luck of the alphabetic sort.

Many thanks for Wayne and JW for digging into this and fixing it.

Wayne - there's no mention in the NEWS file about the changes
to avoid modifying the file list entries after they are built
that should allow shared data memory to remain intact (avoiding
Copy on Write) after the client forks the generator, thus using
less memory in systems that support CoW.

I think this (perhaps reworded :D) is worth noting in the INTERNAL
section.
-- 
        John Van Essen  Univ of MN Alumnus  <vanes002@umn.edu>