rsync - Jan 2005 - low memory way of getting file list?

Hi,
   I need to get a file list off a server using rsync; but it is a large
file list and uses ~1GB of RAM.  Does rsync really need to keep
this data structure around just for getting a file list (with -r)?

Failing that, can anyone recommend any rsync compatible library
that is efficient for this; ideally I'd like to sit in the loop of
filenames so I can exclude some directories if there are special
flag files in the directories they are in.

Thanks,

Dave