GNU bug report logs - #17138
cp: how to respect target symlinks?

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Message #8 received at 17138 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Linda Walsh <coreutils <at> tlinx.org>
To: 17138 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#17138: how to respect target symlinks w/cp?  problem?
Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 21:07:18 -0700

Is some server bottled up somewhere? this bug was the last one
I saw come through...

Linda Walsh wrote:
> I was wanting to copy a source tree
> to a target where the target had some symlink'd dirs..
> 
> 
> /arch64/> \cp -r usr/. ../usr/.
> cp: cannot overwrite non-directory `../usr/././share' with directory 
> `usr/./share'
> 
> I have a setup on a bi-arch machine
> where /usr/share under each 'arch' points to a common
> /common/share/... I see options in the manpage for
> having cp respect the SOURCE symlinks, but
> see no option to have it respect symlinks in the target.
> 
> Note: If I wanted the target's symlinks to be overwritten
> or ignored, I would use "cp -fa" that would overwrite
> the symlinks (I think) and create them as directories,
> but barring "a", why doesn't it just follow the path?
> 
> The purpose of symlinks was to allow seamless redirection,
> but now more utils seem to be ignoring that usage just
> like on a security level group access is being increasingly
> ignored.
> 
> tar just overwrites the symlink with the dir w/o warning...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

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