rdiff-backup: Restoring a file from its increments

Dieter Heußner via Any discussion of rdiff-backup <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.sysutils.backup.rdiff-backup.general
Message-ID <1961800.usQuhbGJ8B@hp15>
Hello,

could somebody shed some light to the question of restoring files backed up by rdiff-
backup, please?

Given an original file, say file A. It will be backed up with rdiff-backup, and also 
its increments (assuming that there are many changes to file A). 

When restoring a given version of that file,
a) does rdiff-backup construct the desired version step-wise by applying ALL 
increments of that file (in chronological order beginning with the original version), OR
b)  does rdiff-backup start with the original file (file A) and ONLY applies the most recent 
increment which relates immediately prior or precisely to the timestamp of the 
desired version to be restored?

In my understanding, if a) was true, deleting increments (say older than n 
weeks) would not always result in the desired version because of probably missing 
increments. If b) was true, the goal can be achieved. However, as a newbie to rdiff-backup 
I am not sure at all.
 
As a newbie to rdiff-backup I'd appreciate if the rdiff-backup documentation 
cover these issues for better understanding the mechanisms of this tool.

Best regards
Dieter 

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