On 2021/03/08 16:07, Paul Eggert wrote:
On 3/8/21 3:27 PM, L A Walsh wrote:
gnu accepts but ignores the previously active '-f'(from) switch
GNU "touch -f" has always been a no-op and has never meant "from" as far
as I know - though I admit I looked back only to 1992. Perhaps you're
thinking of some other "touch" program? If so, which one and which version?
Is the data loss you mentioned something that you actually observed? If
so, what was the context?
---
Data loss shown in original bug submission. As mentioned/documented
it was use of:
'touch -f <from filename> <destination filename>'
which overwrites the meta-data information on "from filename"
with the current date+time.
I don't know which version of touch I remember it from as I've
use a few versions of unix, as in (scratching memory):
some form of SCO Unix on Intel chips (early 80's, pre IBM-PC),
HPUX, Sun Unix(a BSD variant), SunOS (a SysV variant), IRIX(sgi),
among others whose names I don't remember.
