GNU bug report logs - #17963
cp: strange behavior (possibly redundant link recreation)

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From: Paul E Condon <pecondon <at> mesanetworks.net>
To: 17963 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#17963: strange behavior of cp
Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2014 18:10:44 -0600

I have a situation in which I want to merge two file
sturctures by copying one of the structures onto the
other with the following command:

cp -aulv arxivBtry1/host/* arxivBtry2/host/

This should, I believe, make hardlinks into arxivBtry2/host/ for any
plain file that is present in arxivBtry1/host/ if a newer version of
that file is not already present in arxivBtry2/host/. And, also I
think that if I interrupt this statement and restart it, it should do
nothing to the hardlinks it has already inserted in arxivBtry2/host/
silently.  But when I try this resume operation I get a long list of
reports of removing files from arxivBtry2/host/. Why? Examination of
arxivBtry2/host/, using ls -la indicates that the file in arxivBtry2/host/
that was reported removed is still there, so the removal reports seem
to be false reports.

More details about the environment:

Both arxivBtry1/host/ and arxivBtry2/host/ are directories on an
external harddisk that has 3 TeraB capacity and is half full. This ls
output:

root <at> big:/media/gfx2/hostmrg2# ls -ls
total 44
4 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 20140701_144028 arxivAtry1
4 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 20140630_185519 arxivBtry1
4 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 20140705_105447 arxivBtry2
4 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 20140702_071706 glb2try1
4 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 20140701_154330 glbltry1
4 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 20140701_150432 mrg4try1
4 drwx------ 3 root root 4096 20140705_102058 sgt1fxd
4 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 20140702_215246 sgt1xxx
4 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 20140701_144837 wdp71try1
4 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 20140701_123858 wdp7vtry1
4 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 20140630_231448 wdp8try1
root <at> big:/media/gfx2/hostmrg2# 

The other lines in this listing are other directories
each of which also has a sub-directory named 'host'.
Once I understand what's going on, I intend to merge
them into arxivBtry2/host/, also.

I'd be happy to call this behavior a feature, not a
bug, if it is already known to you and known to 
cause not harm to the actual merge of the plain files
of the two structures into one structure. 

Thanks for your help,
-- 
Paul E Condon           
pecondon <at> mesanetworks.net

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