On 2024-02-02 22:45, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
I looked into the autoconf info files, section
'Limitations of usual tools', and 'cp -l' wasn't explictly mentioned,
Although tt's expecting a bit much for the Autoconf manual to say every
option that *isn't* portable, as there are so many (and they
proliferate), the manual could be better about what *is* portable and I
installed the attached.
From 163dade069be64df7cce5c6d48fdcb56188a6f60 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Paul Eggert <egg...@cs.ucla.edu>
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2024 21:37:49 -0800
Subject: [PATCH] =?UTF-8?q?Document=20=E2=80=98cp=E2=80=99=20limitations?=
=?UTF-8?q?=20better?=
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
* doc/autoconf.texi (Limitations of Usual Tools):
Modernize discussion of ‘cp’.
---
doc/autoconf.texi | 25 +++----------------------
1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 22 deletions(-)
diff --git a/doc/autoconf.texi b/doc/autoconf.texi
index bcd35195..186c033b 100644
--- a/doc/autoconf.texi
+++ b/doc/autoconf.texi
@@ -19288,28 +19288,9 @@ newline encoding.
@item @command{cp}
@c ---------------
@prindex @command{cp}
-Avoid the @option{-r} option, since Posix 1003.1-2004 marks it as
-obsolescent and its behavior on special files is implementation-defined.
-Use @option{-R} instead. On GNU hosts the two options
-are equivalent, but on Solaris hosts (for example) @code{cp -r}
-reads from pipes instead of replicating them. AIX 5.3 @code{cp -R} may
-corrupt its own memory with some directory hierarchies and error out or
-dump core:
-
-@example
-@kbd{mkdir -p 12345678/12345678/12345678/12345678}
-@kbd{touch 12345678/12345678/x}
-@kbd{cp -R 12345678 t}
-cp: 0653-440 12345678/12345678/: name too long.
-@end example
-
-Some @command{cp} implementations (e.g., BSD/OS 4.2) do not allow
-trailing slashes at the end of nonexistent destination directories. To
-avoid this problem, omit the trailing slashes. For example, use
-@samp{cp -R source /tmp/newdir} rather than @samp{cp -R source
-/tmp/newdir/} if @file{/tmp/newdir} does not exist.
-
-The @option{-f} option is portable nowadays.
+The @option{-i}, @option{-f}, @option{-p} and @option{-R} options are
+widely used. POSIX also specifies @option{-H}, @option{-L}, and
+@option{-P}. Avoid other options in portable scripts.
@cindex timestamp resolution
Traditionally, file timestamps had 1-second resolution, and @samp{cp
--
2.40.1
