From bae9c38410ca338d603ea4f62fb4ef177705d8ff Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: =?utf8?q?P=C3=A1draig=20Brady?= Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2013 10:13:30 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] doc: clarify the example for cp --preserve=links * doc/coreutils.texi (cp invocation): Give more detail about what's happening in the example, explicitly calling out the --no-dereference option required to make the -H and -L options significant. Also mention the option order significance of the -H and -L options. Fixes http://bugs.gnu.org/15579 --- doc/coreutils.texi | 8 +++++--- 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/doc/coreutils.texi b/doc/coreutils.texi index b273627787..cc806d52cc 100644 --- a/doc/coreutils.texi +++ b/doc/coreutils.texi @@ -8257,9 +8257,11 @@ $ mkdir c; : > a; ln -s a b; cp -aH a b c; ls -i1 c @noindent Note the inputs: @file{b} is a symlink to regular file @file{a}, yet the files in destination directory, @file{c/}, are hard-linked. -Since @option{-a} implies @option{--preserve=links}, and since @option{-H} -tells @command{cp} to dereference command line arguments, it sees two files -with the same inode number, and preserves the perceived hard link. +Since @option{-a} implies @option{--no-dereference} it would copy the symlink, +but the later @option{-H} tells @command{cp} to dereference the command line +arguments where it then sees two files with the same inode number. +Then the @option{--preserve=links} option also implied by @option{-a} +will preserve the perceived hard link. Here is a similar example that exercises @command{cp}'s @option{-L} option: @smallexample -- 2.47.2