Subject: cp -a [-l] sometimes does not preserve timestamps of symlinks

From: Ruediger Meier <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2011 15:46:07 +0200

Hi,

I see you fixed that already for for cp -a
http://marc.info/?t=124897089600001&r=1&w=2

But it does not together with option -link:

cd /tmp/
ln -s somewhere symlink
touch -h -t "197001010000"  symlink
cp -a symlink symlink-a
cp -al symlink symlink-al
ls -l symlink*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 rudi users 9 1970-01-01 00:00 symlink -> somewhere
lrwxrwxrwx 1 rudi users 9 1970-01-01 00:00 symlink-a -> somewhere
lrwxrwxrwx 1 rudi users 9 2011-03-29 13:44 symlink-al -> somewhere

I'm using core utils coreutils 8.9 (opensuse 11.4).

BTW with coreutils 7.1 and 6.9 it behaves the other way, -al is correct 
but -a not.

So probably -al is broken since you fixed -a in 7.5.

cu,
Rudi