Subject: bug#50097: gzip: add "--keep" option to keep original files unchanged

From: Rodrigo Campos <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2021 17:28:51 +0200

On 8/19/21 3:50 PM, Antonio Diaz Diaz wrote:
> Rodrigo Campos wrote:
>>> { >>a && ln a b && gzip -k b
>>> }
>>
>> Exactly, the original file is unaffected, therefore nothing to fix in
>> this specific patch. Note the same happens without "-k" too.
> 
> I think the point of Krzysztof is that the patch is incomplete because, 

Oh, thanks for chiming in :)

> in addition to keep the original file, it should also allow the 
> (de)compression of links without forcing the user to type also '-f' for 
> no apparent reason.

It is not the -k flag that disallows this.

> 
> $ touch a && ln a b && ls -go *
> -rw-r--r-- 2 0 Aug 19 15:29 a
> -rw-r--r-- 2 0 Aug 19 15:29 b
> $ gzip -k b
> gzip: b has 1 other link  -- unchanged

Yeap, but the same happens if you run this instead: gzip b (i.e. without 
-k).

It is not the -k flag that gets in the way. This is what happens in 
gzip, even without using the flag.

Am I missing something?