Subject: bug#53534: 28.0.91; on netbsd 'gmake install' outputs 'find: chown: No such file or directory'

From: Glenn Morris <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2022 13:21:04 -0500

Eli Zaretskii wrote:

> Why "cp -R" and not ${INSTALL_DATA}, per conventions?

INSTALL_DATA doesn't recurse.

> (Is the -R switch to cp even portable enough nowadays? 

I believe it is, but in case it isn't, the patch continues to fall back
to tar.

> IMO we should verify that,

How do you propose to verify it?

> not just assume that since 10 years have passed, the problem doesn't
> exist anymore.

It's 14 years since cp -R was added to POSIX.
In 2022, I am ok with assuming that recursive copy is a solved problem.

> The Autoconf manual still has some caveats about using "cp -R", for
> example.)

What are the relevant caveats?
Literally the only possible one I can see is:

  "AIX 5.3 'cp -R' may corrupt its own memory with some directory
  hierarchies and error out or dump core"

Does Emacs support that platform? If it does and this issue happens, the
fall-back to tar will handle it.

I point out once again that the current code is buggy and leads to files
being installed with the wrong owner.