Help to sync files based on content

nonoitall · 01-15-2009, 03:13 AM

Okay, I'll cut to the chase. There are two directories:

/dir1
/dir2

I want files and directories that exist in dir2 and not in dir1 to be deleted from dir2.
I want files and directories that exist in dir1 and not in dir2 to be copied to dir2 and have their timestamps from dir1 preserved.
I want files and directories on dir2 that differ (based on their content) from dir1 to be overwritten by the ones in dir1, and have their timestamps from dir1 preserved.
I don't want any other files or directories on dir2 to be changed at all - not even their timestamps.

What's the best way to accomplish this?

acid_kewpie · 01-15-2009, 03:27 AM

well this is laregly the default behaviour of rsync. add the -t option to preserve timestamps and --delete to delete the dir2 files. It might seem odd using rsync within a machine, but the code is all there, just need to connect to your self.

$ rsync -avz --delete -e ssh user@localhost:/where/ever/dir1 /where/ever/dir2

nonoitall · 01-15-2009, 04:48 AM

That method will overwrite the timestamps of unchanged files on dir2 though (and it will assume files with different timestamps are different without checking content). The closest I've been able to get is using:

Code:

rsync -rlvzc --delete <src> <dest>

...but this doesn't preserve the timestamps of new/changed files. (Preserving file permissions is unimportant in this instance.) I also tried:

Code:

rsync -rlvzct --delete <src> <dest>

...but this overwrites the timestamps of unchanged files.