every time it is updating all files but i want to update the changed files only

[sherz12r]

is there any way to update changed files only on push it is updating all files to server every time i push

[Burnett01]

Hi, can you check please if #20 or #21 help you?

[sherz12r]

I checked already but no clear example can you please share or mention thanks

[Burnett01]

if the time on your server differs from the actions runner time, rsync thinks the file has changed and thus syncs it over.

You can try the --times switch so that times on both ends are synchronized.

Maybe also try --checksum switch in combination with --times.

Please report back if that helps already

[Burnett01]

You could also try --files-from to only select the files touched via git diff:

steps:
      # Checkout the repository
      - name: Checkout Code
        uses: actions/checkout@v3

      # Get a list of changed files compared to the previous commit
      - name: Get Changed Files
        id: changed-files
        run: |
          git diff --name-only HEAD^ > changed_files.txt
          echo "::set-output name=files::$(cat changed_files.txt | tr '\n' ' ')"

      # Deploy only the changed files using your rsync-deployments action
      - name: Deploy Changed Files
        uses: Burnett01/rsync-deployments@master
        with:
          switches: -avz --files-from=changed_files.txt
          remote_path: /path/to/remote/destination/

[sherz12r]

thanks it worked very well
a little more i will add for future searcher if they want to use exclude with changed files only

    steps:
      - name: Checkout Code
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          fetch-depth: 2

      - name: Get Changed Files
        id: changed-files
        run: |
          git diff --name-only HEAD^ |
            grep -vEi '^\.github/|^\.git/|^readme\.md' > changed_files.txt || true
          echo "files=$(cat changed_files.txt | tr '\n' ' ')" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT

      - name: Deploy Changed Files
        uses: Burnett01/rsync-deployments@master
        with:
          switches: -avz --files-from=changed_files.txt

[kieranbrown]

it's likely rsync will be updating the timestamp and not the actual file contents, you can confirm that with --itemize-changes which will show you extra detail on why a file was transferred.

For example you might see: (Meaning file / timestamp)

.f..t.... app/Providers/AppServiceProvider.php

I don't think git preserves timestamps, I saw some chatter on actions/checkout#364 saying adding fetch-depth: 0 on checkout would then preserve the timestamps, but I've not confirmed if that's true, the mtime of all files will just be the time of checkout.

IMO the simpliest approach for using rsync inside of GHA is using rsync -azL --no-times --checksum --itemize-changes

The changed files approach mentioned above is fine, but sometimes you want to rsync files not tracked by git, for example package modifications in node_modules / vendor etc.

[Burnett01]

Thank you very much @sherz12r and @kieranbrown !
I will set this ticket as "documentation" and pin to at the top of issues page, so other devs with the same question can easily find this.

Much appreciated,

Greetings Steve