support for rdiff-backup front-end

[Ben Escoto]

--==_Exmh_-2103656905P
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii


A few people have expressed interest in writing an rdiff-backup front
end, or at least using rdiff-backup automatically from scripts instead
of "by hand".  The latest version tries to make this easier by:

1.  Allowing a different restore syntax (see man page).  This way a
    script doesn't have to find the right increment file.  (Also this
    way is probably easier for humans too, and should have been
    offered as an alternative from the beginning.)

2.  The -l or --list-increments option can list the increments of any
    file in the mirror or increments directory, and not just the root
    directory.  Also the new --parsable-output switch makes the output
    of this command just list the times of the increments in seconds
    and the file type, and skip any other information.

3.  In each increments directory there will be a
    directory_statistics.<time>.data file containing some statistics
    about how much of that data was backed up.  For instance, when I
    ran rdiff-backup on my home system just now, it made a
    rdiff-backup-data/increments/directory_statistics.2002-05-11T04\:22\:01-07\:00.data
    file which read:

        TotalFiles 430962
        TotalFileSize 7558619700
        ChangedFiles 13562
        ChangedFileSize 158037777
        IncrementFileSize 36300202

    This means that the mirror directory had 430962 files, which
    totaled about 7.5GB.  Of those, 13562 had been changed from last
    time, for a total changed size of about 160MB.  The increments
    which recorded this change take up about 36MB of space.

I would like to hear if there are any other changes that would make
life easier for the front-end writer.  In particular, I don't really
know what --parsable-output should do and wouldn't mind changing the
current behavior.  (But as a consequence, the current behavior is
provisional and may change.)


--
Ben Escoto

--==_Exmh_-2103656905P
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Exmh version 2.5 01/15/2001

iD8DBQE83a4Z+owuOvknOnURAk8lAKCDndZrlVilL9VqmAOnNAms/qQ9RgCfd2vh
8E1OI/wRrP4z2pmR0sYX8Zk=
=D4ic
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--==_Exmh_-2103656905P--