Re: bug in copy-directory

[Thierry Volpiatto]

Lennart Borgman <address@hidden> writes:

> On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 5:30 PM, Chong Yidong <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Stefan Monnier <address@hidden> writes:
>>
>>>>> Actually on 23.2.92.1, copy-directory, called interactively or not copy
>>>>> the files of directory A to existing directory B instead of copying
>>>>> directory A inside directory B.(as a subdirectory of B).
>>>
>>>> Hmm, this is a bit problematic.
>>> [...]
>>>> The trouble is that Lisp callers might depend on the old behavior.
>>>
>>> Couldn't/shouldn't we distinguish between interactive and
>>> non-interactive calls, then?  I.e. have the interactive spec turn the
>>> B into (expand-file-name (file-name-nondirectory A)) when B is an
>>> existing directory.
>>
>> Wouldn't that be confusing?  "Copy directory A to directory B" really
>> ought to mean the same as "cp -r a b".
>
> Isn't the semantics of "cp" broken + undescribed?
No

> I had a directory x1, but no x2. Doing
>
>   cp -r x1 x2
>
> works as I expect it to, i.e. x1 and x2 are identical.
>
> However after a second
>
>   cp -r x1 x2
>
> there is suddenly a directory x1 inside x2.
That's what is expected, imagine with what you expect, x2 is your home
directory or /etc, and you copy x1 to it by error...

> I really dislike this kind of context specific semantics that is both
> unintuitive and undescribed.
cp have a nice man page, you should read it.

-- 
A+ Thierry
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