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Message-ID: <3C791DAB.EE1EC15D@yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 12:06:51 -0500
From: CBFalconer <cbfalconer AT yahoo DOT com>
Organization: Ched Research
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To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: cp complains about timestamps of directories
References: <3405-Sun24Feb2002180347+0200-eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
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Reply-To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> 
> Let's say you have a directory with 2 subdirectories, dir1 and dir2,
> and let's say that dir1 has the files file1, file2, and file3 in it.
> If you now type
> 
>     c:\foo> cp -pvPr dir1/* dir2
> 
> cp will print this:
> 
>     dir1 -> dir2/dir1
>     dir1/file1 -> dir2/dir1/file1
>     cp: preserving times for dir2/dir1: Permission denied (EACCES)
>     dir1/file2 -> dir2/dir1/file2
>     dir1/file3 -> dir2/dir1/file3
> 
> I understand why the error message is printed, but the DJGPP port
> shouldn't print it, since we know DOS/Windows doesn't let us change
> the time stamps of directories, so this failure is normal behavior,
> not something the user should be bothered with.
> 
> I'm also puzzled as to why is the message printed after cp copies
> dir1/file1, not after it copies dir1 into dir2.

Probably because the copy message is generated before copying, and
the act of copying generates the necessity of creating dir2/dir1. 
Read -> as "I am about to copy".

> My cp.exe is dated June 4, 2001, and its size is 128000 bytes, in case
> this is important.

I assume this happens only when creating dir2/dir1, and not when
using a preexisting one. There are ways of beating this, but are
they worth the trouble?  They involve storing the current time,
setting the desired time, creating the directory, restoring the
time, etc. and would be very hard to hide beneath the system
calls.  They would also lead to anomalous data, such as a
subdirectory created before its parent.

I think it would be better to simply document it somewhere, maybe
in the FAQ under "anomalies, because DOS is Not Unix".

-- 
Chuck F (cbfalconer AT yahoo DOT com) (cbfalconer AT XXXXworldnet DOT att DOT net)
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