X-debbugs-cc: bug-cpio@gnu.org Package: cpio Version: 2.12+dfsg-6 '-m' '--preserve-modification-time' [*note copy-in::,*note copy-pass::] Retain previous file modification times when creating files.
does not work on symlinks! $ ls n|cpio -o|(cd tt && cpio -tv) 1 block lrwxrwxrwx 1 jidanni jidanni 1 Dec 25 18:36 n -> m 1 block $ ls n|cpio -o|(cd tt && cpio -idvm) 1 block n 1 block $ ls -l tt total 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 jidanni jidanni 1 12-25 18:38 n -> m The user must make a second pass, using touch --no-dereference -d ... to restore the dates to the original times. Why is this important? Well scripts that check if we have cpio'ed all the current versions of a list of files will say that we failed.