cp: -r or -R?

This blog post is odd because it keeps on hinting about a difference between `-r' and `-R' and links to the source code but never actually says what it is. I'll quote the OpenBSD manual that the post mentions but does not link to for some reason:

> Historic versions of the cp utility had an -r option. This implementation supports that option; however, its use is strongly discouraged, as it does not correctly copy special files, symbolic links or FIFOs.

https://man.openbsd.org/cp

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mkl 27 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

-a

Not sure why you wouldn't want to preserve timestamps, links, etc. by default.

	▲	JdeBP 2 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		This is rather missing the point. The headlined article isn't really about how to achieve a goal, but about the weird history and evolution of a tool that leads us to the rather odd situation that we are in today. And it's far from being the only tool that has a weird history, that looks rather nutty if one looks at it from the point of view of a novice having to learn this stuff. It's also not even completely covering the weird case of -r and -R for the cp command. On HP-UX, for example, the twain were different, but not in the way that they were in old GNU Core Utilities. That would be too easy. (-: The AIX manual for cp explains its difference between -r and -R: * https://ibm.com/docs/en/aix/7.1.0?topic=c-cp-command Illumos also treats the two differently, but in a subtly different way: * https://illumos.org/man/1/cp

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drhagen 36 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It always seemed like the recursive flag of cp was an implementation detail leaking into the UI. Like, I get that copying a file requires creating more than one inode, but...so? Eventually, graphical OSes agree with me—copy/paste works the same on folders as it does on files.

	▲	dotancohen 14 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Thirteen years ago I asked the same question: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/82485/when-wouldnt-... It seems that recursive by default would have been much more intuitive.

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pasc1878 23 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Use rsync instead

	▲	trucks-refinish 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		rsync unfortunately doesn't do relinking at all, so I can't use it as a generic replacement for cp.

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5555watch 29 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

On a somewhat related note, I really hate that in scp -r and -R mean entirely different things.

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pluc 12 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

The worst is when things behave different when you give them `~/somedir` vs `~/somedir/`. I think it's rsync that does that

	▲	amelius 8 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, into versus onto. Luckily we have AI to write our command lines.

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aulin 22 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

How about port that is lowercase in ssh and uppercase in scp?

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bsoqk an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's "ditto", not "dito"

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Waterluvian an hour ago | parent [-]

As in the Pokémon, not the Philippines telecom company.

	▲	Yaqub_W 36 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Much easier to press a key twice than to hunt for é for most people. I get your point though

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mqus an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

would you be safe in using --recursive always? (e.g. shell scripts)

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olowe an hour ago | parent | next [-]

There are implementations of cp out in the wild that do not recognise the --recursive flag. OpenBSD was mentioned in the article and there’s also busybox cp https://busybox.net/downloads/BusyBox.html

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hnfong 38 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Double dash long options are basically a GNU extension. BSD utilities generally don't support them. Apparently macOS does not either (since it's based off of FreeBSD)

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JdeBP 24 minutes ago | parent [-]

macOS was based off NextBSD, not FreeBSD.

And the received wisdom about long options in the BSDs is a quarter of a century out of date. When the BSDs gained a getopt_long() in their C libraries thanks to Klausner and Baron, long options quietly started appearing. This process has been gradually and quietly on-going for the whole of the 21st century.

	▲	throw0101a 8 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> macOS was based off NextBSD, not FreeBSD. "NextBSD" was first released in 2015: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NextBSD Over a decade after macOS/Mac OS X was initially released: > macOS (previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a proprietary Unix[7][8] operating system, derived from OPENSTEP for Mach and FreeBSD, which has been marketed and developed by Apple since 2001. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS > Darwin is the core Unix-like operating system of macOS, iOS, watchOS, tvOS, iPadOS, audioOS, visionOS, and bridgeOS. It previously existed as an independent open-source operating system, first released by Apple in 2000. It is composed of code derived from NeXTSTEP, FreeBSD[3] and other BSD operating systems,[7] Mach, and […] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system) I remember reading release notes for FreeBSD in the '00s and seeing the exact same lines in the release notes for earlier versions of OS X.

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dotancohen 12 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

I believe that -R is the safe works-as-expected-everywhere option.