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.

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alwillis 13 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

ditto is an option on macOS for copying files and directories [1].

[1]: https://keith.github.io/xcode-man-pages/ditto.1.html

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dotancohen an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

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.

	▲	JdeBP 29 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It's rather sad that none of the answers were that the cp command simply did not gain a recursive option until the 1980s, well into the 1980s if you were on one side of the Unix wars. Yes, seriously. When you read about the supposed evils of cat -v from the Unix nostalgia people, remember that it was the same people who gave cat its -v option who also gave cp its -r option, in 4.2BSD. It took over half a decade to percolate out of the BSD world, too. AT&T Unix System 5 did not have an -r option to cp. Here's Brandon S. Allbery explaining in 1987 how one copies directories on AT&T Unix System 5 Releases 2/3 by combining find and cpio -p: * https://groups.google.com/g/comp.unix.questions/c/XiumTgkcYR... Originally we read directories as raw byte streams and liked it, you know. (-: