Hi Peng, If you would be so kind could you in the future address these types of messages to [email protected] instead of bug-coreutils? The bug-coreutils address has been changed from "all-discussion" to "bug-discussion" and along with that change every message here now opens a bug ticket in the bug tracking system so that we don't lose track of reported bugs. The [email protected] address was created for general discussion that isn't attached to the bug tracking system. Thanks!
Peng Yu wrote: > I'm trying to cp -MM to -M. But so far I don't have a way to do it. > Would you please let me know what is the correct way to cp from -MM to > -M? > > $ cp -r -- -MM/ -- -M > cp: target `-M' is not a directory The first "--" stops further option recognition and processing. So it is only needed once. The second one after the first one has turned off option processing is therefore recognized as a filename. Since you have three files listed (the extra one being "--") then the target is required to be a directory. Instead just use one "--". You wanted to say: $ cp -r -- -MM -M Or traditional usage would use "./" to avoid the first character of the string from starting with a dash. $ cp -r ./-MM ./-M Since the strings do not start with a dash then they are not recognized as command option arguments. Bob
