Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 15:25:27 -0700 From: Pat Lashley <patl+freebsd@volant.org> To: Chuck Swiger <cswiger@mac.com>, Jamie <jamie@gnulife.org> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: tar vs cp Message-ID: <2156421632.1065047127@mccaffrey.phoenix.volant.org> In-Reply-To: <3F7B0D5C.7080009@mac.com> References: <20031001122603.B71418-100000@floyd.gnulife.org> <3F7B0D5C.7080009@mac.com>
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--On Wednesday, October 01, 2003 13:22:36 -0400 Chuck Swiger <cswiger@mac.com> wrote: > Jamie wrote: > [ ... ] >> I don't know what the actual rationale is for this. Can anyone >> explain why it is oftentimes better to tar something rather than >> using cp when copying directories and their contents? > > tar handles symbolic links properly, whereas cp will "copy through" the > contents of the link. Another technique is 'cd /source ; find . -print | cpio -pdmv /dest'. But none of the built in tools seem to preserve links, flags, and sparseness. If you want as close to a true copy as possible, check out the cpdup port. -Pat
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