>> 2) cp inconsistency when copying a directory to a) a non existing >> directory, or b) to an existing directory. Further elaborated below. >> >> cp -a SOME_DIR NOT_YET_EXISTING_DIR >> >> results in a new directory directly containing each entry of SOME_DIR >> >> while: >> CP -a SOME_DIR EXISTING_DIR >> >> results in EXISTING_DIR/SOME_DIR >> >> The first result seems to be a reasonable outcome in both cases. >> Appending "/" to the directory-names should lead to the same result. >> While appending "/." to the target-directory would change the meaning, >> and rather lead to the result of the observed second version. > > So you would like > > cp -a dir dest_dir # copy dir/* to dest_dir/ > cp -a dir dest_dir/ # copy dir to dest_dir/
No. I would like that a) cp -a dir dest_dir does what b) cp -a dir previously_not_existing_dest_dir does already Consider you have the following directory layout: / /dir /dest_dir Then - at least in v. 7.1 of coreutils - b) results in the new directory layout: / /dir /dest_dir /previously_not_existing_dest_dir while a) would result in: / /dir /dest_dir/dir Try it. The described behaviour is at least counter intuitive. In order to copy a directory and its contents _into_ another directory cp -a dir dest_dir/. already works and is an appropriate statement to express what is meant. The appended "/." makes it clear that the target is the content of the directory and not the directory itself. While it seems to be a slight difference it is actually not. Please reason about this. Kind regards, Thomas
