This is an idea for optimizing Obnam.

Store MD5 of string containing names + relevant metadata of all files in a directory, then re-compute that when backing up a directory: if checksums are same, then no file in the directory has changed, and there's no need to check each of them separately, saving many tree lookups

Consider only non-dirs, since subsubdir can change without it being visible at grandparent level. Thus, recursing is always necessary.

--liw

done wishlist has been open for years, no change. --liw