Hi Linda, On 10/28/2013 08:09 AM, Linda Walsh wrote: > On 10/27/2013 5:38 PM, Pádraig Brady wrote: >> So overwriting files with dirs and vice versa >> is prohibited by POSIX. The existing cp options >> do not adjust this aspect. If you don't care what's >> in the destination at all, why not just rm it before the copy? > > > Um --- isn't that what the "--remove-destination" option is supposed to > do?
"info coreutils 'cp invocation'" says: `--remove-destination' Remove each existing destination file before attempting to open it (contrast with `-f' above). In this case, "file" really means a regular file (or socket, fifo, ...) but no directory. The documentation could be clearer about that ... > Also note, I tried to use it with the "update" option, [...] ... and it may be a question to discuss whether --remove-destination should be able to rmdir() emtpy directories, but that GNU extension should never help you out in the case of non-empty directories. I got the overall impression that you try to sync a source to a destination. Tools like rsync may be better for such a scenario than cp(1) which is made primarily to cp: copy files and directories Have a nice day, Berny