Re: cp command

[Jim Meyering]

Patrick J Clas <address@hidden> wrote:
> No, but I did try --preserve=timstamps which I would assume has the same
> result.  And that says that it preserves the listed attributes if
> possible, which would imply to me that it wouldn't return a failure if it
> wasn't possible.

If you ask it to preserve timestamps, it fails if it cannot to do so.

Please tell us what version you're using (cp --version),
as well as the precise command you ran and the output
and exit status it produced.

If you're not using coreutils-5.3.0, please get it:

  ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-5.3.0.tar.gz
  ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/coreutils-5.3.0.tar.bz2

or, better still, try the latest from cvs:

  http://savannah.gnu.org/cvs/?group=coreutils