Re: Debian Mirror

[Craig Sanders <cas@muffin.pronet.com>]

On Sun, 28 Apr 1996, Kevin M Bealer wrote:

> > Is there any reason why the tar command is better than "cp -af"?
> 
> I have always heard it's because 'cp' copies symlinks as real files, but GNU
> cp doesn't seem to do that when using (-af).  Also there is a (-d) option
> which is supposed to prevent this behavior.

yep, 'cp -a' is the same as 'cp -dpR'.  '-f' is force.


Extracted from the cp(1) man page:

       -a, --archive
                     Preserve as much as possible of the structure and
                     attributes of the original files in the copy.  The
                     same as -dpR.

       -d, --no-dereference
                     Copy symbolic links as symbolic links rather than
                     copying the files that they point to, and preserve
                     hard link relationships between source files in the
                     copies.

       -p, --preserve
                     Preserve the original files' owner, group,
                     permissions, and timestamps.

       -R, --recursive
                     Copy directories recursively.

Craig