tag 47353 + notabug close 47353 thanks Dan Jacobson wrote: > Or (info "(coreutils) Backup options") should "admit" that "Numbered > backups need to be trimmed occasionally by the user, lest the fill up > the disk."
If the user has asked for them then any decision of the disposition of them is up to the user. If the user fills up their storage with them then surely the user who created them will know what they did and will be in the best position to decide what to do. This type of thing is really both too general to document in detail and too specific to document in detail at the same time. It targets a very specific thing, filling up the disk, with a very general purpose action, copying files. Both of which are plain actions not hidden or subtle. Consuming storage space by making copies is the primary purpose of the cp command. > And also mention in the manual that e.g., emacs has methods to trim > these automatically, but coreutils hasn't implemented them yet. Although cp, mv, and ln, may have used the same format as emacs for the creation of backup files that does not mean that they *are* emacs or that emacs is the preferred editor for users of cp and mv or that knowledge of emacs is needed to use them. I use Emacs and find it a superior editor for creating customized domain specific editors. But I don't think it should be referenced from cp because the Emacs documentation is *HUGELY* more complicated. If a new user is reading documentation on how to use cp then being directed to climb the learning curve of Emacs would be way too much to ask! There is a user who I think would file a bug that it is too much to ask if it were done that way. The better thing to mention in relation to cp would be rm as those would be natural siblings. But they are actually siblings already. So there seems no further need to cross-reference them additionally redundantly again redundantly. I am marking the ticket as closed as there seems nothing to actually do here. But as always more discussion is welcome and if it is determined that something should be done then the ticket may be opened again to track it. Bob
