bug#62572: Bug#1058752: bug#62572: cp --no-clobber behavior has changed

[Pádraig Brady]

On 01/02/2024 00:36, Paul Eggert wrote:
> On 1/31/24 06:06, Pádraig Brady wrote:
> > To my mind the most protective option takes precedence.
>
> That's not how POSIX works with mv -i and mv -f. The last flag wins. I
> assume this is so that people can have aliases or shell scripts that
> make -i the default, but you can override by specifying -f on the
> command line. E.g., in mymv:
>
>      #!/bin/sh
>      mv -i "$@"
>
> then "mymv -f a b" works as expected.
>
> Wouldn't a similar argument apply to cp's --update options?
>
> Or perhaps we should play it safe, and reject any combination of
> --update etc. options that are incompatible. We can always change our
> mind later and say that later options override earlier ones, or do
> something else that's less conservative.

OK I err'd on the side of changing as little as possible wrt precedence.
-n still has precedence over any -u,--update option.
That's simplest to understand (while not changing existing precedence),
and shouldn't cause any practical issues.

I plan to push the 2 attached patches for this tomorrow.

thanks,
Pádraig

0001-cp-mv-reinstate-that-n-exits-with-success-if-files-s.patch
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0002-cp-mv-add-update-none-fail-to-fail-if-existing-files.patch
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