rsync - Dec 2008 - Feature I'd love to see: --move-dest

Looking over rsync's --compare-dest, --copy-dest, and --link-dest
options, there's one thing I really wish I could do, and I've been
looking for a few years now for a program that could do it: Instead of
copying or hard-linking from the compare directory to the target
directory, I'd like to move the files. 

That is, whenever the file already exists in the compare directory, it
is moved forward into the target directory; but if the existing file is
different or doesn't exist, then a new file is made in the target
directory. 

The result would be that, after several backups (each to a new
directory, perhaps named with the current date) the most recent
directory would be a snapshot of the source, and each previous directory
would have previous versions of files or copies of deleted files. (This
is effectively the opposite result of --compare-dest, which gives you a
snapshot of the first version of the files, with each successive
directory storing only the changed files.) This makes two very common
restore scenarios very simple: restoring the entire directory tree to
the most recent version after a drive failure, and restoring a previous
version of a single file after it was accidentally over-written, even if
the modified version has since been backed up.

I looked over the rsync source to see if I could add this functionality
myself, but I'm really not a very good programmer and it's definitely
beyond me. To someone familiar with the source, however, I have to
imagine it would be a fairly straightforward feature to add... just add
replace the copy operation in --copy-dest or the link operation in
--link-dest with a move operation.

-- Josh

Hi,

I'm curious as to why you need a new option rather than just using
--link-dest.  Both --link-dest and --copy-dest already allow the "two
very common restor scenarios" that you mention and --link-dest uses
hardly any extra disk space than your --move-dest suggestion.  You
also get the added advantage that each previous backup continues to
look like a full "snapshot".

David

2008/12/9 Josh Hanson <JoshHanson@capriomgt.com>:
> Looking over rsync's --compare-dest, --copy-dest, and --link-dest
> options, there's one thing I really wish I could do, and I've been
> looking for a few years now for a program that could do it: Instead of
> copying or hard-linking from the compare directory to the target
> directory, I'd like to move the files.
>
> That is, whenever the file already exists in the compare directory, it
> is moved forward into the target directory; but if the existing file is
> different or doesn't exist, then a new file is made in the target
> directory.
>
> The result would be that, after several backups (each to a new
> directory, perhaps named with the current date) the most recent
> directory would be a snapshot of the source, and each previous directory
> would have previous versions of files or copies of deleted files. (This
> is effectively the opposite result of --compare-dest, which gives you a
> snapshot of the first version of the files, with each successive
> directory storing only the changed files.) This makes two very common
> restore scenarios very simple: restoring the entire directory tree to
> the most recent version after a drive failure, and restoring a previous
> version of a single file after it was accidentally over-written, even if
> the modified version has since been backed up.
>
> I looked over the rsync source to see if I could add this functionality
> myself, but I'm really not a very good programmer and it's
definitely
> beyond me. To someone familiar with the source, however, I have to
> imagine it would be a fairly straightforward feature to add... just add
> replace the copy operation in --copy-dest or the link operation in
> --link-dest with a move operation.
>
> -- Josh
> --
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On Mon, 2008-12-08 at 17:23 -0500, Josh Hanson wrote:
> Looking over rsync's --compare-dest, --copy-dest, and --link-dest
> options, there's one thing I really wish I could do, and I've been
> looking for a few years now for a program that could do it: Instead of
> copying or hard-linking from the compare directory to the target
> directory, I'd like to move the files. 
> 
> That is, whenever the file already exists in the compare directory, it
> is moved forward into the target directory; but if the existing file is
> different or doesn't exist, then a new file is made in the target
> directory. 
> 
> The result would be that, after several backups (each to a new
> directory, perhaps named with the current date) the most recent
> directory would be a snapshot of the source, and each previous directory
> would have previous versions of files or copies of deleted files. (This
> is effectively the opposite result of --compare-dest, which gives you a
> snapshot of the first version of the files, with each successive
> directory storing only the changed files.)
--backup-dir gives you essentially this, except that you would always
specify the same destination, and rsync would move the changed files out
of that directory each time instead of moving the unchanged files over
to a new directory.

-- 
Matt