Tom Lane wrote: > Thom Brown <t...@linux.com> writes: > > On 18 June 2011 04:13, Bruce Momjian <br...@momjian.us> wrote: > >> I tested on FreeBSD 7.4 and saw a 1 error return: > > > And on a Mac (so through Darwin 10.7.0 a BSD version too): > > Yeah, see yesterday's discussion on pgsql-admin. I think the behavior > with the error return may be a BSD-ism. In any case, GNU cp does *not* > do what we want, and that accounts for a sufficiently large fraction of > machines in the field that I think it's just unsafe to suggest using > "cp -i" so prominently. There are too many people who'll just copy and > paste the first example provided, especially if the warning to test it > is buried several paragraphs later.
Agreed. Even if we could decide whether we want an existing file to cause cp to fail or succeed, the bigger problem is that 'test ! -f $FILE && cp' and 'cp -i' often don't do the same thing, to the point where it doesn't even seem worth mentioning the idea of using 'cp -i' at all. I frankly don't think most users are competent enough to be able to test their cp -i command, end even if they are, that script might migrate to a machine that handles cp -i differently. I think we should just document the test ! -f version and be done with it, and maybe mention cp -i as non-portable. -- Bruce Momjian <br...@momjian.us> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com + It's impossible for everything to be true. + -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers