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Re: 21doc-cp-r-portability.diff


From: Paul Eggert
Subject: Re: 21doc-cp-r-portability.diff
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 20:29:55 -0800
User-agent: Gnus/5.1006 (Gnus v5.10.6) Emacs/21.3 (gnu/linux)

Derek Robert Price <address@hidden> writes:

>>1999-11-08  Tom Tromey  <address@hidden>
>>
>>        * automake.in (handle_dist_worker): Use `cp -R', not `cp -r'.
>>        From Jim Meyering.  Also, don't mention file name in `cp'
>>        destination.  From Olly Betts.
>
> I would normally tend to trust the comments in autoconf or automake,
> myself, but I'm pretty sure "almost always incorrect" is not the case,

It's true but only in context.  The context is that when "cp -R" and
"cp -r" differ in behavior, the latter is almost always not what the
user wanted.

> At the least, we have the CVS test suite running using the `cp -r'
> form on between 14 and 16 different platforms,

If your tests have only regular files and directories, you shouldn't
notice any difference.  Posix says that -r and -R have equivalent
effect in that case.  (cp -r is marked as obsolescent, by the way,
which means strictly conforming applications can no longer use cp -r.)




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