GNU bug report logs - #62572
cp --no-clobber behavior has changed

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From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigBrady.com>, Michael Stone <mstone <at> debian.org>
Cc: 1058752 <at> bugs.debian.org, Bernhard Voelker <mail <at> bernhard-voelker.de>, 62572 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#62572: Bug#1058752: bug#62572: cp --no-clobber behavior has changed
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2024 16:36:16 -0800

On 1/31/24 06:06, Pádraig Brady wrote:
> To my mind the most protective option takes precedence.

That's not how POSIX works with mv -i and mv -f. The last flag wins. I 
assume this is so that people can have aliases or shell scripts that 
make -i the default, but you can override by specifying -f on the 
command line. E.g., in mymv:

   #!/bin/sh
   mv -i "$@"

then "mymv -f a b" works as expected.

Wouldn't a similar argument apply to cp's --update options?

Or perhaps we should play it safe, and reject any combination of 
--update etc. options that are incompatible. We can always change our 
mind later and say that later options override earlier ones, or do 
something else that's less conservative.

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