purpose of bgpd.conf dump "timeout" parameter?

[Adam Thompson]

In bgpd.conf(5), for the "dump" directive there is an optional "timeout" 
parameter.  What is its purpose?  I assume from the examples that it's 
denominated in seconds...

my first guess was to time out on attempting to write to the dump file, 
but that doesn't seem realistic.  It looks like it's a cycle, i.e. the 
dump file will be recreated every X seconds, but if so, why is it called 
"timeout" and not "interval" ?

I see in the source that MRT_MAX_TIMEOUT is set to 7200 - does this mean 
that if I leave the parameter unset, the MRT file will be re-dumped 
every 2 hrs?

Yes, I'll produce a patch for the manpage if someone can explain what 
the parameter is supposed to do / how it works.

Thanks,
-Adam