GNU bug report logs - #61105
cp/mv: want a fatal --no-clobber

Previous Next

Full log

Message #25 received at 61105 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigBrady.com>
To: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>, Mike Frysinger <vapier <at> gentoo.org>
Cc: 61105 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#61105: cp/mv: want a fatal --no-clobber
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2023 17:11:00 +0000

On 31/01/2023 16:55, Paul Eggert wrote:
> On 2023-01-30 13:35, Pádraig Brady wrote:
>> This is a good observation.
>> Also the current "skip" functionality of coreutils cp -n
>> is already catered for with the --update option.
> 
> For consistency, there too the exit status should reflect whether the cp
> action was done.
> 
> I installed the attached patch to implement this; comments welcome. In
> the meantime I'm boldly closing the bug report.

I'm not sure I agree with making this change for --update.
Note POSIX doesn't specify -u (or -n TBH), so it's a
bit of a stretch to take its specification of
"All files were copied successfully" in this case,
when it wasn't considering these cases.

To me --update is less useful if it fails in this case.

thanks,
Pádraig

Previous Next

GNU bug tracking system
Copyright (C) 1999 Darren O. Benham, 1997,2003 nCipher Corporation Ltd, 1994-97 Ian Jackson.