From: Russ Allbery <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 21 Sep 2000 18:10:18 -0700
> I believe that mv -f is fully portable. I think the only portable
> options to mv are -f and -i.
I know that cp -f definitely *isn't* portable. I forget where it
misbehaved, but it was a bug report against one of my earlier packages.
Unfortunately, it was for an old Makefile whose revision history I didn't
save when I rewrote the package as a Perl module. SunOS, maybe?
Yes, SunOS cp does not support -f. SunOS mv, however, does.
SunOS cp supports -i, -p, -r. I don't think -p or -r are portable.
It's possible to deduce why mv and cp are different with respect to
-f. mv prompts by default before overwriting a read-only file. cp
does not. Therefore, mv requires a -f option, but cp does not. mv
and cp behave differently with respect to read-only files because the
simplest form of cp can not overwrite a read-only file, but the
simplest form of mv can. This is because cp opens the target for
write access, whereas mv simply calls link (or, in newer systems,
rename).
Ian
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