Is anyone working on optimizing network traffice by using Binary Net Difference

[Lloyd]

I'm impressed with the vision of efficient code that is small and fast.  The one thing I don't see available is the ability to use Block Technology or Binary Patching to minimize the network load when transferring files or data.  This technology has been used in software update systems and backup systems for some time but no one has applied the principle to files and data streamed between clients or the server.  This would highly optimize Rebol for network traffic.

In essence, the Block Technology process evaluates changed data by breaking a file down into discrete blocks of information. These blocks are typically between 1 and 32 kilobytes in size.  Through the use of a cyclic redundancy check (CRC), Block Technology compares each block of a modified file with the corresponding block in the previous version of that file. When the process detects a difference, it extracts a copy of that discrete block, not the entire file.

Binary patching does not evaluate a file as a collection of discrete blocks, rather as a continuous string of binary data.  Utilizing a complex algorithm and special memory management, binary patching is capable of comparing files and extracting patches of binary data that represent only the specific changes to those files. Simply put, If only 1 kilobyte of data has actually changed in the file, then only a 1-kilobyte patch is extracted for transmission, thus eliminating the overhead imposed by Block Technology methodology.

Anyone working on this concept?  I would like to see it become a Rebol standard.

[Gabriele]

I know of an rsync implementation in REBOL but not sure if it has ever been finished/released.

[Lloyd]

Thanks for the reply.  Would you know were I can search for more information?

I know of an rsync implementation in REBOL but not sure if it has ever been finished/released.

[Gabriele]

I'll ask if it has been released somewhere. I suspect it wasn't though.