Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!aplcen!haven!adm!xadmx!Kemp@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL From: Kemp@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Berkley-isms (was: Why no job control in 386/ix) Message-ID: <21495@adm.BRL.MIL> Date: 20 Nov 89 15:12:49 GMT Sender: news@adm.BRL.MIL Lines: 30 > You think that ISC's csh is bad, just try the one that ATT ships > on their version of the 386 software! Eech!. > > My guess at the reason. Csh is a Berkley [sic] development and > SystemV people don't care for Berkley-isms. I once complained > about the absence of '-r' on the System V cp command and was told, > in effect, that in that context, '-r' was an offence against > Decency and the Natural Order of Things. As implemented by Berkeley (or at least in SunOS), cp -r *is* an offense against Decency and the Natural Order of Things. Of course, so is 'cd fromdir; tar cf - . | (cd todir; tar xvf -)'. So is 'find blah blah blah | cpio -p'. I don't think that having a simple command to 'make an exact copy of this directory hierarchy' is inimical to the Unix Philosophy of 'do one job and do it well'. If cp -r wasn't such a botch, it would be worth having. Just for the record, is there *any* way to do a recursive copy correctly? I.e. one that doesn't: * turn symbolic links into actual files * turn link loops into a series of infinitely nested copies * alter the modify and change times * choke on block and character special files * turn holes in sparse files into real disk blocks Dave Kemp