Run rsync persistently

Sometimes I have to transfer large numbers of large files for work. When an rsync error occurs in the middle of the night, it makes for a pretty disappointing morning. The following script runs rsync persistently, meaning it will retry (with --ignore-existing) until all files are received and rsync exits with status 0.

Here's the script:

#!/bin/bash
# persistent-rsync
# run an rsync command until it completes with exit status 0

# always runs with --progress and --ignore-existing
# passes all other command line arguments on to rsync


COMMAND="rsync --progress --ignore-existing $*"

date
echo "Running rsync until complete..."
echo $COMMAND

while ! $COMMAND
do
    date
    echo "Restarting rsync..."
    sleep 1
done

date
echo "Rsync complete."

exit 0

Python: PyROOT + optparse

If for some reason you have to use PyROOT (in my case, I need to use TMVA), you probably still want to parse command line arguments for yourself, e.g. with optparse. To prevent PyROOT from scooping up the command line, import it like so:

import sys

tmpargv = sys.argv[:]             # [:] for a copy, not reference
sys.argv = []
from ROOT import gSystem, gROOT
from ROOT import TMVA             # otherwise I wouldn't be using ROOT!
sys.argv = tmpargv

from optparse import OptionParser

Et voilá, your command line is under control!