Re: Recursive copies in dired abort on first error

[Sven Joachim]

Richard Stallman wrote:
> I think this fix ought to work, but it is not easy for me to test it.
> Would you please test it?
>
> *** dired-aux.el        17 Jul 2006 16:31:56 -0400      1.146
> --- dired-aux.el        28 Aug 2006 14:35:01 -0400      
> ***************
> *** 1165,1174 ****
>               (or top (dired-handle-overwrite to))
>             (make-directory to))
>           (while files
> !           (dired-copy-file-recursive
> !            (expand-file-name (car files) from)
> !            (expand-file-name (car files) to)
> !            ok-flag preserve-time nil recursive)
>             (setq files (cdr files))))
>         ;; Not a directory.
>         (or top (dired-handle-overwrite to))
> --- 1165,1177 ----
>               (or top (dired-handle-overwrite to))
>             (make-directory to))
>           (while files
> !           (condition-case err
> !               (dired-copy-file-recursive
> !                (expand-file-name (car files) from)
> !                (expand-file-name (car files) to)
> !                ok-flag preserve-time nil recursive)
> !             (file-error
> !              (dired-log "Copying error for %s:\n%s\n" (car files) err)))
>             (setq files (cdr files))))
>         ;; Not a directory.
>         (or top (dired-handle-overwrite to))

I recursively copied the /etc directory to my home directory, and it
seems that it worked, leaving out only a few unreadable files.  But
there was no indication at all that an error occured, short of the
buried *Dired log* buffer.  There definitely needs to be a message
about that, like in the non-recursive case.

By the way, it would be nice if the recursive copies could preserve
the timestamps of directories and symbolic links, on systems that
support this.