Git Log as History

[xave]

I had a thought about using git on the names of the files as a sort of history of files over time, kept in the root of the backup directory. One might search this to see when a file has been removed permanently or other such things.

[royarisse]

I hope I understand where you're trying to go here…
You want to be able to call git log to see a history of changes.

Perhaps it would be an idea to store the rsync verbose output into log files (one per run)?
I don't think is required here, just a simple logs dir would do.

You don't mean using git for computing / keeping all the changes (thus committing all files to git) and then pushing the entire git repository over rsync, right? I think that would make the entire script moreless useless.

Please let me know :)

Edit: I hope I don't sound like I'm dismissing your idea upfront, because I'm not. Pleas know I really appreciate your input!

[xave]

I'm not referring to storing any files in git. Just thinking there might be a way to add a means of exploring what has been there historically, even after we inevitably overwrite things. More of a sanity check:

"I know that file existed at some point in history even though its not on any of my backups for whatever reason, though not due to any fault of rsync".

[xave]

Do note, I think this is scope creep on the tool itself. But I wanted to share the thought.

[royarisse]

It might be a simple as adding --itemize-changes and/or --log-file to the rsync command, not sure though.
Perhaps it's scope creep, but I do see the added value. let me think about it for a bit :)