Consider the following use of cp -p to create an identical copy (identical in content and in timestamps, etc.):
# echo xxx > jnk # ls --full-time jnk -rw------- 1 root root 4 2008-01-31 18:40:27.879358240 -0800 jnk # cp -p jnk jnkcopy # ls --full-time jnk* -rw------- 1 root root 4 2008-01-31 18:40:27.879358240 -0800 jnk -rw------- 1 root root 4 2008-01-31 18:40:27.879358000 -0800 jnkcopy # ls --version ls (coreutils) 5.2.1 Written by Richard Stallman and David MacKenzie. Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. # Note that the timestamp values are NOT the same. I ran into this when (trying) to use cp -p as a way of remembering when the original version of a file was created (i.e., I later then compared the timestamps of jnk and jnkcopy ... but due to the loss of precision in the copy, they will rarely be equal). Ray Liere _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list Bug-coreutils@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
