Re: Adding -l option to cp

[uwe%stderr.spb.ru@localhost (Valeriy E. Ushakov)]

Christos Zoulas <christos%astron.com@localhost> wrote:
> In article <00BED867-3DBD-42EE-8773-EB490EB369BB%gmail.com@localhost>,
> Adam Hamsik  <haaaad%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:
>
>>Just for the record it can be done with pax -r -w -l.
> 
> Does it really matter? Don't we have tools that have overlapping
> functionality already? It is simple enough to add, and it does not
> add a lot of maintenance overhead. In terms of userland utility
> innovation there is solaris at one end of the spectrum and linux at
> the other. I think it is better to be somewhere in the middle.

The problem with "oooh, nice option.  want!" approach is that you
can't just pick one of them without considering other options and how
they all play together.  E.g. linux cp also has an option to use
symbolic links (-s), so why add -l and not add -s along with it?
Another relevant option in this context is to prevent crossing of
mount points (-x), and again, the proposal doesn't mention it.  [BTW,
our pax doesn't seem to have --one-file-system option, though our tar
does have it (-l)].

If we want our cp to be pax -rw in disguise, then we should add all of
the relevant options externally and make cp and pax -rw actually share
the code internally.

-uwe