1.6 Applicability Statement

RDC can be used any time it would be helpful to store or transfer the differences between a source and a set of seeds instead of storing or transferring the source file in its entirety. RDC is only useful when there is data in common between the files being compared. However, RDC is the compression and differencing algorithm and is in no way involved with the actual data transfer.

An example of when it can be helpful to use RDC is when individuals collaborate on shared documents over a wide-area, low-bandwidth network. During a round of edits, it is advantageous to work on a local copy of the shared document.  It is recommended that the shared document be copied between the involved sites when a different editor takes over. Instead of copying over the entire contents of the document, it might be beneficial to copy over only what has been edited.