Re: cp -p and metadata

[Jim Meyering]

Bruno Haible <address@hidden> wrote:
> This blog
>   
> http://blog.plasticsfuture.org/2006/03/05/the-state-of-backup-and-cloning-tools-under-mac-os-x/
> has an explanation of all the kinds of file metadata that exists on MacOS X:
> resource forks, creation date, ACLs, extended attributes.
>
> Some of these (ACLs, extended attributes) also exist on Linux.
>
> Should "cp -p --preserve=all" copy these metadata?

That is a worthy goal of any program that professes to copy.

> Should --preserve have a possible value indicating extended attributes?

I suppose that depends on how useful and/or generally applicable such an
option would be.  Considering the small number of reports of cp failing
to copy this type of attribute, I have not been inclined to work on it.

But as usual, if fixing/extending this scratches your itch, and the
patches are clean and maintainable, I'll probably go for it.