Updated the --max-delete docs.

[rsync/rsync.git] / rsync.yo

diff --git a/rsync.yo b/rsync.yo
index 74cbe9f..6d3973e 100644 (file)
--- a/rsync.yo
+++ b/rsync.yo
@@ -668,13 +668,12 @@ the destination and have a modified time that is newer than the source
 file.  (If an existing destination file has a modification time equal to the
 source file's, it will be updated if the sizes are different.)
 
-In the current implementation of bf(--update), a difference of file format
-between the sender and receiver is always
-considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what date
-is on the objects.  In other words, if the source has a directory or a
-symlink where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur
-regardless of the timestamps.  This might change in the future (feel
-free to comment on this on the mailing list if you have an opinion).
+Note that this does not affect the copying of symlinks or other special
+files.  Also, a difference of file format between the sender and receiver
+is always considered to be important enough for an update, no matter what
+date is on the objects.  In other words, if the source has a directory
+where the destination has a file, the transfer would occur regardless of
+the timestamps.
 
 dit(bf(--inplace)) This causes rsync not to create a new copy of the file
 and then move it into place.  Instead rsync will overwrite the existing
@@ -1100,13 +1099,15 @@ using bf(--delete-after), and it used to be non-functional unless the
 bf(--recursive) option was also enabled.
 
 dit(bf(--max-delete=NUM)) This tells rsync not to delete more than NUM
-files or directories.
-Beginning with version 3.0.0, you may specify bf(--max-delete=0) to
-be warned about any extraneous files in the destination, but be very
-careful to never specify a 0 value to an older rsync client, or the
-option will be silently ignored.  (A 3.0.0 client will die with an
-error if the remote rsync is not new enough to handle the situation.)
-This is useful when mirroring very large trees to prevent disasters.
+files or directories.  If that limit is exceeded, a warning is output
+and rsync exits with an error code of 25 (new for 3.0.0).
+
+Also new for version 3.0.0, you may specify bf(--max-delete=0) to be warned
+about any extraneous files in the destination without removing any of them.
+Older clients interpreted this as "unlimited", so if you don't know what
+version the client is, you can use the less obvious bf(--max-delete=-1) as
+a backward-compatible way to specify that no deletions be allowed (though
+older versions didn't warn when the limit was exceeded).
 
 dit(bf(--max-size=SIZE)) This tells rsync to avoid transferring any
 file that is larger than the specified SIZE. The SIZE value can be