When using "--files-from list" where the list contains the name of a file that doest't exist on the server, rsync exits with RERR_PARTIAL. If the only error (on the server side) is "can't lstat file", an exit with the more specific RERR_VANISHED would be more to the point. Context: "instant mirroring of CPAN" ; CPAN publishes (every minute) a list of changes (files to delete or update). I use "rsync --files-from" to fetch the updated files. In a corner-case I need to determine if a given file actually exists on the server (if not, discard the update). At the moment, this is hard. But if a single-file rsync would return RERR_VANISHED if the file doesn't exist, I could use that. So, I suggest "rsync --files-from" exits with RERR_VANISHED if the only error is that one or more files in the list can't be lstat'ed. Thanks, regards -- Henk Penning
In looking at this, I like the RERR_PARTIAL return better for missing args (which is what files-from files are). However, you can use one of these to get rsync to treat missing args as OK: --ignore-missing-args --delete-missing-args