Re: cp and "blah/." or "." as a source

[Zak]

On 4 Dec 2006, at 03:39, Eric Blake wrote:
> > I'd guess (wildly) that POSIX says cp should fail and do nothing  
> > rather than do what it does.
>
> - -a is a GNU extension, so POSIX says nothing about how it behaves.

OK, but the -R (or maybe -r), which is I guess what I really meant,  
might be specified by POSIX.  If only the standard were free I'd have  
a read and see.

> It should not matter whether you spell the source as 'src/.' or the  
> shorter 'src', since both spellings name the same hierarchy.

That's my point.  I suspect it shouldn't matter, but it does.  If you  
say "src" or "src/" you get one behaviour, but if you say "src/." you  
get another, despite the fact that they name the same directory.

> Yes, the behavior you posted looks like it matches the documentation.

How can it match the documentation when the behaviour for "src/" and  
"src/." differs and there's nothing to say "src/." is a special case?