GNU bug report logs - #12365
Incorrect return value of cp with no-clobber option

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Package: coreutils;

Reported by: Anoop Sharma <sendtoanoop <at> gmail.com>

Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 11:59:01 UTC

Severity: normal

Tags: wontfix

Done: Eric Blake <eblake <at> redhat.com>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

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From: Anoop Sharma <sendtoanoop <at> gmail.com>
To: 12365 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#12365: Incorrect return value of cp with no-clobber option
Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 17:27:52 +0530

When -n (--no-clobber) option of cp is used and the DEST file exists, then, as
expected, cp is not able to copy the SOURCE to DEST.

However, cp returns 0 in this case.

Shouldn't it return 1 to indicate that copy operation could not be completed?

In absence of this indication how is one to know that some recovery
action like re-trying cp with some other DEST name is required?

Regards,
Anoop
This bug report was last modified 12 years and 262 days ago.

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