Re: -i interactive command not working

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

[I lost the original posters message, so I'm replying in this one]
 
   This bug report isn't in a form where we can help you out much.

It might be a bit shallow yes, but it is in a state where we can help
I belive.

   Alexander Donald Roberts <address@hidden>
   Sent by: address@hidden
   01/08/2004 04:24 AM

       The interactive command for copy and move are not working (cp
   -i file) and (mv -i file) but they are listed as legal commands
   until the help menu.  I am a student at Columbia University and
   connecting to newcunix.cc.columbia.edu Is this command just not
   allowed??  Thanks for your time.

As Steven said, your bug report is a bit low on information, but I'm
guessing that you did the following:

$ touch foo
$ mv -i foo bar

That is, renaming `foo' to a completely new name.  If you check the
info page for mv (and cp), it says that `-i' will only prompt if you
_overwrite_ a file.

>From (coreutils) cp invocation:

  `-i'
  `--interactive'
       Prompt whether to overwrite existing regular destination files.

And (coreutils) mv invocation:

  `-i'
  `--interactive'
       Prompt whether to overwrite each existing destination file,
       regardless of its permissions.  If the response does not begin
       with `y' or `Y', the file is skipped.


Jim, what do you think about converting all option text into macros so
that they will stay in sync and ease a bit of a maintaining nightmare?
So instead of duplicating all the text each time one wants to show the
`--interactive' option, you would just have:

@macro opt_interactive

And then defining it as follows:

@macro opt_interactive
@item -i
@itemx --interactive
@opindex -i
@opindex --interactive
Prompt whether to overwrite each existing destination file,
regardless of its permissions.  If the response does not begin
with `y' or `Y', the file is skipped.
@end macro

(hopefully that made sense :-)

Cheers.