Re: Bug in libtoolize

[Albert Chin]

On Wed, Feb 16, 2005 at 11:43:00PM +0900, Peter O'Gorman wrote:
> Brian Barrett wrote:
> 
> >Could libtoolize just use 'cp -f -p' instead of 'cp -f' when copying the 
> >files and leave the timestamps as they are in the original libltdl 
> >directory?  I admit to not understanding all the details, but that was 
> >enough to clear up the problem for me (as one would expect - the 
> >installed sources of libltdl should be setup correctly...).  Seems much 
> >easier than any of the other options.
> 
> I'm just googling cp -p portability actually, on first inspection it seems 
> like this is a no-brainer. I'll google some more to find out why we're 
> wrong :)

>From the autoconf manual:
     Commands like `cp -p' and `touch -r' typically do not copy file
     timestamps to their full resolutions (*note Limitations of Usual
     Tools::).  Hence you should be wary of rules like this:

          dest: src
                  cp -p src dest

     as `dest' will often appear to be older than `src' after the
     timestamp is truncated, and this can cause `make' to do needless
     rework the next time it is invoked.  To work around this problem,
     you can use a timestamp file, e.g.:

          dest-stamp: src
                  cp -p src dest
                  date >dest-stamp

I don't see any signs in it of `cp -p' being non-portable.

-- 
albert chin (address@hidden)