rsync link corruption with -H and --link-dest

["Gareth Evans" <donotspam@fastmail.fm>]

Hi all,

I have asked this question on both the rsync mailing list and serverfault.com but got no response from either.

I would be grateful, if this isn't too off-topic, if anyone could explain the following:

man rsync for -H includes:

"If you specify a --link-dest directory that contains hard links, the linking of the destination files against the --link-dest files can cause some paths in the destination to become linked together due to the --link-dest associations."

How and/or why does this happen?  What sort of scenario might lead to it?

Thanks
Gareth