+- "tahoe cp" changes:
+
+There are many "cp"-like tools in the unix world (POSIX /bin/cp, the "scp"
+provided by SSH, rsync). They each behave slightly differently in unusual
+circumstances, generally dealing with copying whole directories at a time,
+into a target which may or may not exist already. The usual question is
+whether the user is referring to the source directory as a whole, or to its
+contents. For example, should "cp -r foodir bardir" create a new directory
+named "bardir/foodir"? Or should it behave more like "cp -r foodir/* bardir"?
+Some tools use the presence of a trailing slash to indicate which behavior
+you want. Others ignore trailing slashes.
+
+"tahoe cp" is no exception to having exceptional cases. This release fixes
+some bad behavior and attempts to establish a consistent rationale for its
+behavior.
+
+The new rule is:
+
+- If the thing being copied is a directory, and it has a name (e.g. it's not
+ a raw tahoe directorycap), then you are referring to the directory itself.
+- If the thing being copied is an unnamed directory (e.g. raw dircap or
+ alias), then you are referring to the contents.
+- Trailing slashes do not affect the behavior of the copy (although putting a
+ trailing slash on a file-like target is an error).
+- The "-r" (--recursive) flag does not affect the behavior of the copy
+ (although omitting -r when the source is a directory is an error).
+- If the target refers to something that does not yet exist:
+ - and if the source is a single file, then create a new file;
+ - otherwise, create a directory.
+
+There are two main cases where the behavior of tahoe-1.10.1 differs from that
+of the 1.10.0 release:
+
+- "cp DIRCAP/file.txt ./local/missing" , where "./local" is a directory but
+ "./local/missing" does not exist. The implication is that you want tahoe to
+ create a new file named "./local/missing" and fill it with the contents of
+ the tahoe-side DIRCAP/file.txt. In 1.10.0, a plain "cp" would do just this,
+ but "cp -r" would do "mkdir ./local/missing" and then create a file named
+ "./local/missing/file.txt". In 1.10.1, both "cp" and "cp -r" create a file
+ named "./local/missing".
+- "cp -r PARENTCAP/dir ./local/missing", where PARENTCAP/dir/ contains
+ "file.txt", and again "./local" is a directory but "./local/missing" does
+ not exist. In both 1.10.0 and 1.10.1, this first does "mkdir
+ ./local/missing". In 1.10.0, it would then copy the contents of the source
+ directory into the new directory, resulting in "./local/missing/file.txt".
+ In 1.10.1, following the new rule of "a named directory source refers to
+ the directory itself", the tool creates "./local/missing/dir/file.txt".
+
projects / tahoe-lafs / tahoe-lafs.git / blobdiff