rsync options to copy links within-relative dir and resolve out-of-relative-dir to hard files - rsync

Question

I'm not sure if this is possible. I've been fiddling with a MWE for awhile.
I'm using rsync in relative mode (-R) to copy a remote directory from a server onto my local machine. The remote directory may have symlinks. Sometimes the symlinks point within the scope of the relative directory, and sometimes they point outside of it.
When the links point inside the relative directory, I want to only copy the links (because the files are already synced, so those links should resolve).
When the links point outside the relative directory, I want to copy the files themselves because otherwise the links would likely not resolve.
I've setup a MWE to test various ways of doing this:
TEST_BASE=rsync_test
REMOTE_DPATH=$HOME/tmp/rsync-test/remote
LOCAL_DPATH=$HOME/tmp/rsync-test/local
REMOTE_URI=$REMOTE_DPATH
REMOTE_MOUNT=$REMOTE_DPATH
reset_rsync_test_remote()
{
# Clean
if [ -d "$REMOTE_DPATH" ]; then
rm -rf $REMOTE_DPATH
fi
mkdir -p $REMOTE_DPATH
# Setup remote data
mkdir -p $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/dir_L0_X0_A
mkdir -p $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/dir_L0_X0_A/dir_L1_X0_B
mkdir -p $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/dir_L0_X1_C
mkdir -p $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/inside_dir
mkdir -p $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/links
mkdir -p $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/outside_dir/
touch $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/file_L0_X0_a.txt
touch $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/dir_L0_X0_A/file_L1_X0_b.txt
touch $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/dir_L0_X1_C/file_L1_X0_c.txt
touch $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/inside_dir/inside_file.txt
touch $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/outside_dir/outside_file.txt
# Create links to inside and outside the sync root
ln -s $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/inside_dir/inside_file.txt $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/links/inside_flink.txt
ln -s $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/outside_dir/outside_file.txt $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/links/outside_flink.txt
ln -s $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/outside_dir $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/links/outside_dlink
ln -s $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/inside_dir $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/links/inside_dlink
ln -sr $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/inside_dir/inside_file.txt $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/links/rel_inside_flink.txt
ln -sr $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/outside_dir/outside_file.txt $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/links/rel_outside_flink.txt
ln -sr $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/outside_dir $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/links/rel_outside_dlink
ln -sr $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/inside_dir $REMOTE_DPATH/$TEST_BASE/root/links/rel_inside_dlink
tree $REMOTE_DPATH/
}
reset_rsync_test_local(){
# Setup home data
echo "LOCAL_DPATH = $LOCAL_DPATH"
if [ -d "$LOCAL_DPATH" ]; then
rm -rf $LOCAL_DPATH
fi
mkdir -p $LOCAL_DPATH
mkdir -p $LOCAL_DPATH/$TEST_BASE
# Make an existing link on the destination that we will sync to
mkdir -p $LOCAL_DPATH/link-dest1
mkdir -p $LOCAL_DPATH/link-dest2
ln -s $LOCAL_DPATH/link-dest1 $LOCAL_DPATH/rsync_test-link
ln -s $LOCAL_DPATH/link-dest2 $LOCAL_DPATH/rsync_test-link/root
tree $LOCAL_DPATH
}
reset_rsync_test_remote
This will setup my fake "remote" directory, which looks like this:
The relative directory that we are going to sync is "root".
Notice the links on the bottom. Some of them point inside "root" (in which case they are have inside_ in their name) and some point outside of "root", (in which case they have outside_ in their name). Then half of them are absolute links and the other half are relative links (rel_ prefix). This enumerates all 8 possibilities I'm concerned with here.
I'm going to rsync the "root" directory to an existing symlink within a symlink on my "local" machine to simulate my normal use case. This shouldn't matter too much, it just means we have to specify (-K) when running rsync.
So far I have two methods for doing roughly what I want to do but each has flaws. In the first method I use (-L), which simply resolves all links to their hard files.
# Method 1 with -KL
# The -K is important when syncing to a destination dir that is a symlink
# The -L will resolve any symlinks
# this grabs everything however, all files will be copied over as hard files
reset_rsync_test_local
rsync -avPRKL $REMOTE_URI/$TEST_BASE/./root $LOCAL_DPATH/rsync_test-link
ls -al $LOCAL_DPATH/
ls -al $LOCAL_DPATH/rsync_test-link/
tree $LOCAL_DPATH/link-dest2
Method 2 gets closer, in that it at least links the rel_inside_flink but doesn't link the rel_inside_dlink and it fails to resolve the rel_outside_dlink.
# Method 2: with -Kk --copy-unsafe-links
# Alternatively using -k --copy-unsafe-links will get almost everything
# links inside the relative directory are copied as links, links outside
# the relative dir are copied as files, except relative outside files for
# whatever reason.
reset_rsync_test_local
rsync -avPRKk --copy-unsafe-links $REMOTE_URI/$TEST_BASE/./root $LOCAL_DPATH/rsync_test-link
ls -al $LOCAL_DPATH/
ls -al $LOCAL_DPATH/rsync_test-link/
tree $LOCAL_DPATH/link-dest2
What I'd like is information on how to accomplish either of the following:
In the better than what I have case:
What I'd like is for any rel_inside link would be copied directly as a link, while all other links were resolved and copied as files.
In the absolutely ideal case: it would convert the absolute links that point inside the relative directory to either relative or absolute links at the destination (e.g. inside_dlink would either convert itself to ../inside_dir or /home/joncrall/tmp/rsync-test/local/rsync_test/root/inside_dir).