[PATCH] adding two new options to 'cp'

[Ivan Voras]

Eric Anderson wrote:

> -a is 'archive' mode, which is just a quick form of -PpR.
> -l is 'link' mode, where regular files get hard linked instead of copied.

I agree with this, and while you're in there, can you add -s to copy 
sparse files (via the usual "if the buffer is all nulls, seek beyond eof 
instead of writing" trick)?

I recently had to copy big sparse files and dd with conv=sparse didn't 
work! I managed with rsync but I feel this functionality is the domain 
of 'cp' (yes, like it is in Linux - please don't start bikesheading on 
this detail).