Re: The argument for fs assistance in handling archives

Helge Hafting
2004-09-03T08:28:39Z

Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:

>On Thu, 02 Sep 2004 12:02:59 +0200, Spam said:
>
>
>
>> The meta-data should be deleted if it the file is copied or moved to
>> a medium that doesn't support it. However a _warning_ may be shown
>> to the user if there is risk to loose data.
>>
>>
>
>OK... I'll bite. How do you report the warning to the user if you're using
>an unenhanced utility to copy a file to a file system that may be lossy?
>
>
Well, _if_ you're using my sort of file-as-dir then you'd expect a
plain "cp" to only copy the file. You'd use cp -a to copy the
file's subdirectory too. If you're copying to anther filesystem
that doesn't support file-as-directory then "cp -a" won't be able
to create a directory with the same name as the file, and
will do whatever cp does in such a situation. I.e. something like
"NAME exists but is not a directory".

Helge Hafting