[rdiff-backup-users] Filenames with semicolon ; changed?

[Oliver Mulatz]

Hi Ryan,

> I am running 1.3.0 on Windows XP,

this version is the new development/unstable version, use with care

> 1)  I've been trying rdiff-backup for the last few days, and wanted to see if
> everything is actually copying correctly.  I ran WinMerge to compare my source
> and dest directories, and everything seemed as it should, except:
> "WFMU-FM 91.1Jersey City, NJ; 90.1Hudson Valley, NY.url"
> is named
> "WFMU-FM 91.1Jersey City, NJ;059 90.1Hudson Valley, NY.url"
> in the destination dir,

By default, the ';' (semicolon) is the quotation character used for
escaping "special" characters in filenames, so the semicolon itself
needs to be quoted also, it's decimal number is 59, therefore ';059'.
(http://www.asciitable.com/).
It will be properly converted back upon restore.

For more information:
http://www.nongnu.org/rdiff-backup/FAQ.html#case_insensitive

> 2) What is rdiff-backup --verify x:\dest
> supposed to do?  When I run it, I get these errors for many files
> in my old bookmarks directory:
> Warning: Cannot find SHA1 digest for file BIG/URL/2004 2/BBS Documentary 
> Trailers.url,
> perhaps because this feature was added in v1.1.1
> I've never used an older version of rdiff-backup.  The files in question were 
> copied over.

You're running Windows XP, so you use FAT or NTFS, right?
Are you doing a remote backup, from Linux filesystem to a windows one;
or doing a local backup only in Windows?

From your email I'd guess it's a remote backup, because the path is shown in
forward-slashes (BIG/URL/2004 2/BBS Documentary Trailers.url).

If a Linux-filesystem is involved, there was(/is?) an issue with not generating
SHA-digests for hardlinks (http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?20925).
It's cosmetic, so therefore it probably doesn't show up in the logs.

Cheers, Oliver