tags 8405 + moreinfo notabug thanks Eric Blake wrote: > On 04/01/2011 02:42 AM, aakanksha gaur wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I need to know what is the rationale behind this behavior ? >> >>> cp aa bb >> aa does not exist and neither does bb. No warning is thrown on performing >> this operation. >> >> However, >> if I do >> >>> cp dd cc >> where cc is a non empty file, then a warning is thrown about the source file >> being empty| invalid. >> This is the warning thrown. >> >> cp: cannot stat `dd': No such file or directory > > That's not a warning about being empty/invalid, but a warning about 'dd' > not existing in the first place. > >> >> >> Can I please know the rationale behind this behavior? > > Most likely, you are mistaken, and 'aa' _did_ indeed exist. cp _always_ > warns about a missing source file. > > But to know that for sure, it would help to see a complete trace of your > shell session where you were testing, including ls output along the way, > where you claim to reproduce the problem. > > It may also help your debugging to try 'type cp' to make sure there > aren't any shell functions or aliases interfering with normal operation, > as well as use 'set -vx' prior to cp to see what the shell really did > run. Also, 'cp -v' makes cp more verbose about what it did and tried.
By sending to [email protected] (rather than to [email protected]) you have automatically created a bug report (http://debbugs.gnu.org/8405). Since this seems to be due to a misunderstanding and not a bug, I'm marking it as "notabug". Of course, if you provide details showing there is a legitimate bug, we'll adjust that.
