Add a "-n" option to cp (opposite of "-f")

[Philipp Kohlbecher]

Binary package hint: coreutils

Here's a wishlist item:

The BSD version of cp(1) has a "-n" command line option (cf. http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=cp&sektion=1). It means: "Do not overwrite an existing file."

This is a pretty nice thing to have if you want to copy a bunch of files from A to B without replacing any of the files in B (regardless of their modification time). With this version of cp(1), you have to do something like "yes no | cp -i A/* B/*", which is unnecessarily complicated. cp(1) has the "-f" switch and the "-i" switch, it should have the corresponding "-n" switch.

Thanks for considering!

[Kamil Dudka (kdudka)]

I think it could be useful, did anybody propose this to coreutils upstream?

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

Hello Kamil,

No, nobody has, at least from here (if someone had, the bug would have been updated, at least I hope so).

Please feel free to email bug-coreutils on that (and update the bug accordingly).

[Kamil Dudka (kdudka)]

Well, proposed to coreutils upstream:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2008-10/msg00191.html

[Kamil Dudka (kdudka)]

Patch ready:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2008-10/msg00298.html

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

Marking as fix committed (upstream). Depending on the release of coreutils-7.0, we might get it on Jaunty.

Thanks, Kamil.

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

Marking as fix released, Karmic, coreutils 7.4.