On 2023-07-11 16:29, Tommy Bollman wrote:
Hello guys.
Feature request.
I have made a little command line cp utility *nrcp*, that basically
takes
a file name as an argument and appends an ascending number at the end
of it.
The intention is to be able to keep backups for back tracking during
experimenting with files.
Wouldn't it be better to simply use some of the commonly available
version
control systems for that purpose? See, having a single file versioned
through
IDs in its filename is admittedly rather neat, but the things quickly
become
rather complicated when it gets to directories with multiple files, etc.
The "cp" utility would have to be able to deal with all that, which
would
quickly get out of hand and turn it into yet another version control
system.
I honed the idea further, and I added a **-k** switch, that preserves
the
file mode, so that I can just "nrcp -k shellscript" which returns a
shellscript.0 that is still executable, but I can edit it at my hearts
contents, without ruining the real one.
While at that feature, I figured I could also embed the number, which
is
much more practical if I work on a c-file, or any other file-type where
the
extension matters. And I implemented that in the -k switch, so it both
preserves file mode, and embeds the number inside any extension.
Honestly, I'd rather see the utility in the **moreutils** packaged, but
it
is without maintainer at the moment. And I am being nagged for not
trying
to get you to implement this into core-utils, as it IS a
SUPER-PRACTICAL
feature. :)
I see that cp doesn't do anything with the **-k** nor **-K** switches,
so I
humbly propose those for invoking the behavior in cp.
The whole discussion has been in this reddit thread:
<
https://www.reddit.com/r/commandline/comments/14vptm6/a_little_tool_that_creates_a_numbered_copy_of_a/
The code for the utility resides in this gist:
<https://gist.github.com/McUsr/74e277ff8bd4707f151cf73eae8e20c4>
I hope to hear from you, whether the message be positive or negative!
And I am happy for GNU existing!
Keep up the good work and have a wonderful rest of the summer!
Sincerely
Tommy Bollman/McUsr.
