[PATCH] adding two new options to 'cp'

M. Warner Losh imp at bsdimp.com
Fri Aug 4 00:14:44 UTC 2006


In message: <200607311638.15298.jhb at freebsd.org>
            John Baldwin <jhb at freebsd.org> writes:
: On Monday 31 July 2006 14:53, Mike Meyer wrote:
: > Which points up an obvious question: other than compatibility with
: > Linux, is there any reason this functionaly shouldn't be added to the
: > ln command instead?
: 
: Umm, because ln doesn't copy hierarchies?  Using that argument we'd remove 
: support for hard-links from tar and cpio.  I think cp -a is harmless (just as 
: I use rsync -a all the time rather than rsync -rlptgoD) and cp -l is probably 
: useful.  Really, it is more intuitive to be able to copy a hierarchy using 
: the 'copy' command (cp) directly rather than a convoluted pair of find | 
: cpio.  In this case I think you might be overly paranoid. :)

I tend to agree here.  The bloat is minimal, and if there's ever a
need to create minimal versions of cp, et al, at that time we can
provide ways to optimize for space.  We've done it in the past, and as
we're pushing down into the embedded space, we may need to do it
again.  But we may not...

Warner


More information about the freebsd-hackers mailing list