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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.)