Todd Partridge wrote: > The cp command will copy to a subdirectory without an appending /
You have reached bug-bash, not bug-coreutils. The 'cp' program is in the GNU Coreutils project and so bug reports for 'cp' should go to bug-coreut...@gnu.org and not to bug-bash. The bug-bash list is for bugs and discussion about bash. > mkdir test test2 > touch abc test > touch bcd test2 I think you have typed this in incorrectly. That produces: ./abc ./bcd ./test ./test2 > cp -R test2 test Because test is a directory test2 will be copied into that directory. With the above that produces: ./abc ./bcd ./test ./test/test2 ./test2 > ls test > test2 abc That result cannot be produced from the given commands. Please rephrase the question. > Since the cp command can also rename I think you misunderstand how cp works. A quick and casual summary here. If the target is not a directory then the source file (singular) is copied to the destination. If the target is a directory then cp copies the source files (one or more) into the destination directory. If the target has an appended '/' then the destination must be a directory. Here is the full standards document: http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/cp.html > I think the proper behavior here for 'cp -R test2 test' would be to > error and print that 'Folder already exists'. Of course that would break decades of scripts which expect the standard behavior. I don't understand why would you change this long standing useful behavior. Could you say a few words more about what your problem is with the current behavior? > Appending a / would imply the directory: > cp -R test2 test/ > This usage will remove the ambiguity of the command between the copy > function and the rename function. Please rephrase your question and send it to bug-coreut...@gnu.org. Thanks Bob