rsync - Jul 2004 - Proposal: cache directory tagging convention

Hi rsync'ers,

I'm soliciting feedback, discussion, and hopefully eventually support for a 
(currently very short and simple) proposal that would make it easier and more 
automatic for users to exclude from backups and other data transfers all the 
cache directories that various applications create and manage, such as 
Mozilla's web cache.  The idea is simple: if applications that create and 
manage cache directories establish the convention of writing a certain 
standardized and easily recognized "tag" file within their cache
directories,
then data management utilities such as rsync can easily recognize such 
directories and, if so configured by the user, automatically exclude them 
from transfers.  (For example, via a new pair of rsync options, 
"--exclude-caches" and "--include-caches".)  My preliminary
write-up of the
proposal is here:

	http://www.brynosaurus.com/cachedir/

I'd greatly appreciate your feedback and ideas.  I don't currently know
of an
appropriate place for open, "multicast" discussion of such a proposal,
but
let me know if you do - or I can set one up if there's interest.

Thanks very much for your time!
Bryan

Hello Bryan et al,

A while back John Bowman released a more general solution to
this problem. He added an extra option:
	--rsync-exclude=FILE
that caused rsync to take notice of a per-directory excludes file.

Your problem is solved by this patch. Run rsync with
--rsync-exclude=.backup and place a .backup file in the cache directory
excluding the cache file. This is exactly what I do.

Was this patch ever rolled into the main line distribution?

See http://lists.samba.org/archive/rsync/2003-January/004740.html

		Anthony

On 20 Jul 2004 at 15:15:28, Bryan Ford wrote:
> Hi rsync'ers,
> 
> I'm soliciting feedback, discussion, and hopefully eventually support
for a
> (currently very short and simple) proposal that would make it easier and
more
> automatic for users to exclude from backups and other data transfers all
the
> cache directories that various applications create and manage, such as 
> Mozilla's web cache.  The idea is simple: if applications that create
and
> manage cache directories establish the convention of writing a certain 
> standardized and easily recognized "tag" file within their cache
directories,
> then data management utilities such as rsync can easily recognize such 
> directories and, if so configured by the user, automatically exclude them 
> from transfers.  (For example, via a new pair of rsync options, 
> "--exclude-caches" and "--include-caches".)  My
preliminary write-up of the
> proposal is here:
> 
> 	http://www.brynosaurus.com/cachedir/
> 
> I'd greatly appreciate your feedback and ideas.  I don't currently
know of an
> appropriate place for open, "multicast" discussion of such a
proposal, but
> let me know if you do - or I can set one up if there's interest.
> 
> Thanks very much for your time!
> Bryan
> -- 
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-- 
Anthony R Iano-Fletcher        
  Room 2033, Building 12A,        http://dcb.cit.nih.gov/~arif
  National Institutes of Health,  Anthony.Iano-Fletcher@nih.gov
  12A South Drive, Bethesda,      Phone: (+1) 301 402 1741.
  MD 20892-5624, USA.