Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 17:46:11 +1000 (EST) From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au> To: David Schultz <das@FreeBSD.org> Cc: standards@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Patch for cp(1) Message-ID: <20050402172651.T1084@epsplex.bde.org> In-Reply-To: <20050401172207.GA23665@VARK.MIT.EDU> References: <20050330181904.16519571@mobile.pittgoth.com> <200504011517.j31FHxTO084986@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu> <20050401172207.GA23665@VARK.MIT.EDU>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Fri, 1 Apr 2005, David Schultz wrote: > On Sat, Apr 02, 2005, Bruce Evans wrote: >> -r is the same as -R under Linux (linux_base_8), and it isn't even >> deprecated >> in cp --help at least, so it won't go away, and fingers will be trained to >> use it in preference to -R, for at least another 20 years. > > Isn't that an argument *for* Tom's patch? In any case, I think Of course not. It is an argument for removing -r. NetBSD hasn't changed the behaviour of -r. > the argument about old programs is bogus, because there are > undoubtedly more scripts that assume the Linux behavior than there > are pre-4.2BSD scripts out there. Probably not many running on BSD systems, since if they assume Linux semantics then they won't work except on directories and regular files. > Furthermore, are there situations where -r and -R differ such that > -r would behave reasonably? If it's the case that every time As I said, the main case where cp -r gives useful behaviour is for symlinks, where you actually want to follow symlinks but don't know about cp -RL. > someone uses -r they really mean -R, then simply eliminating -r is > worse than making it an alias for -R. No, it just forces them to use a portable flag. BTW, there are several utilities whose support for tree walks is deficient due to their only having a -r flag and not having caught up with the 13+ year old -RHLP flags. diff is the most important one. Bruce
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20050402172651.T1084>