Re: cp -n diff

[Zafer Aydoğan <zafer%aydogan.de@localhost>]

2011/5/3 Thor Lancelot Simon <tls%panix.com@localhost>:
> On Tue, May 03, 2011 at 08:30:35PM +0200, Zafer Aydo?an wrote:
>> Hello list,
>>
>> attached is a patch that implements the -n option for cp, which skips 
>> existing
>> files on the target.
>
> Please do not check this in.
>
> As if the "functionality" weren't of questionable enough utility all
> on its own, as you point out two other implementations of ls use two
> different option letters to do this, so it cannot be the case that one
> would want this so-called "feature" for script compatibility.
>
> It's Unix.  Use the tools.  In other words, please do not try to jam
> every single useful 3 line shell script you can think of (nor every
> single handy invocation of any other command) duplicatively into
> every single other program in the source tree.
>
> Thor
>


It is not encouraged to use use -n in scripts, neither is -i.
Both are not POSIX compliant but both are useful.
This feature is part of the FreeBSD repository since almost a decade
and it is common behaviour in modern Unix operating systems.
To have consistency across the BSD's it is also named -n.
I'm not suggesting to import everything from FreeBSD,
but why being narrow-minded ? If its useful, we should have it.

Zafer.