vlb@Apple.COM (Vicki Brown) (06/28/90)
In article <48934@seismo.CSS.GOV> black@beno.CSS.GOV (Mike Black) writes: >OK guys, what am I missing? I always copy directories useing 'cp -r' which >works fine, copies the files and not the links and has never burped on me >for any reason. What's the problem with doing it this way? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Depends what you want. tar, cpio, and others of that ilk allow you to preserve the last-mod time, owner, group, permissions, etc. cp does not. When I want an exact (well, as exact as possible ;-) copy of a file tree, I use cpio. We happen to have both (cpio & tar) as well as pax (!); for file tree copying, I rate cpio very highly. For normal archives, I'd rather use tar. I have not used pax, as yet. -- ======================================================================= | Vicki Brown \ Apple Computer, Inc. | | vlb@apple.com \ MS 58A, 10440 Bubb Rd. | | A/UX Development Engineering \ Cupertino, CA 95014 USA | | +1 (408) 974-2120 \ | | Ooit'n Normaal Mens Ontmoet? En..., Beviel't? | | (Did you ever meet a normal person? Did you enjoy it?) | =======================================================================