manpage of rdiff-backup-delete

David Croll via Any discussion of rdiff-backup <[email protected]> Thu, 12 Feb 2026 14:20:31 +0100
Newsgroups gmane.comp.sysutils.backup.rdiff-backup.general
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Hi Patrik,
hi Eric,

As a short follow-up:

...programmers say that there's nothing worse than documentation that's=20
erroneous or misleading...

The manpage for "rdiff-backup-delete" says:

 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0The utility is best used to remove too big or =
secret files=20
erroneously
 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0backed-up. Beware that no trace of the file wi=
ll remain in the
 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0repository after its deletion.

I take some issue with the words "no trace of the file".

I created the file "all my secret little crimes.txt", but after calling=20
rdiff-backup-delete on it, the file increments/backup.log still mentions=
=20
it - if I've run rdiff-backup with the "-v 5" option:

NOTE: Starting mirror from source path source to destination path dest
* Processing file .
* Processing file all my secret little crimes.txt
* Cleaning up

It should be a trivial issue to make rdiff-backup-delete clean up=20
backup.log, and remove all the lines that mention all my secret little=20
crimes.


With the best regards,


David