Subject: Re: bug#31712: cp --attributes-only

From: Pádraig Brady <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2018 16:38:47 -0700

tag 31712 notabug
close 31712
stop

On 19/05/18 00:54, kalle wrote:
> hello,
> I have coreutils 8.26
> and the option
> 
> cp --attributes only FILE OTHERFILE
> 
> correctly doesn't copy the content of FILE,
> but the modification time of OTHERFILE is the actual date, whereas I
> understood that it should be the same as in FILE.

You need to also specify -a, as per the documentation:

‘--attributes-only’
     Copy only the specified attributes of the source file to the
     destination.  If the destination already exists, do not alter its
     contents.  See the ‘--preserve’ option for controlling which
     attributes to copy.

thanks,
Pádraig