Re: [External] : Re: Dired C idea

[Richard Stallman]

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  > Let's imagine a user with a scanner which generates a time-based name
  > for each pdf file it scans.  That person regularly scans per invoices
  > and uses the "C" command to archive them into directory "invoices/",
  > while changing the name at the same time to "invoice-NiceCompany.pdf".

Would you please describe the commands more precisely?  Are you using
the C command on just one file at a time?  Or on several files at a
time?  Or on a directory for recursive copying?

I'm talking about the case of recursive copying of a directory.

  > It sometimes happens that this person forgets that a long time ago a
  > file with the same name was already saved, for another invoice.  This
  > person trusts the "C" command to tell if an overwrite is going to
  > happen, preventing the loss of the old invoice.

I'm thinking about the case of copying a directory.  With the C
command as it is now, you can copy a directory to make a new
directory.  I don't think it is possible to use it to merge a
directory's files into an existing directory.

We could add the ability to do that -- it would be natural if it
worked using rsync -- but that is a case not currently supported.
So there is no possibility of an incompatible change in that case.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)