cp -al won't overwrite existing files

[Zak]

Hi (again),

cp -al won't overwrite existing files with hardlinks to the source  
version.  Quoth the online info(1) page for cp in coreutils (the bit  
about --force):
> Contrast this behavior with that enabled by --link and --symbolic- 
> link, whereby the destination file is never opened but rather is  
> unlinked unconditionally.

But this doesn't seem to be the case unless I use --force:
> laptop:~/cptest zak$ rm -rf *
> laptop:~/cptest zak$ mkdir src dest
> laptop:~/cptest zak$ touch src/a dest/a
> laptop:~/cptest zak$ ls -i src/a dest/a
> 524454 dest/a   524453 src/a
> laptop:~/cptest zak$ ~/coreutils/coreutils-6.6/src/cp -al src/a dest/a
> /Users/zak/coreutils/coreutils-6.6/src/cp: cannot create link `dest/ 
> a': File exists
> laptop:~/cptest zak$ ls -i src/a dest/a
> 524454 dest/a   524453 src/a
> laptop:~/cptest zak$ ~/coreutils/coreutils-6.6/src/cp -al --force  
> src/a dest/a
> laptop:~/cptest zak$ ls -i src/a dest/a
> 524453 dest/a   524453 src/a

I'd like cp to behave like the info page says.  Is this a bug in cp  
or the docs?

Cheers,

Zak