Re: make it possible to avoid symlinks in coreutils' bootstrap

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hello Paul,

* Paul Eggert wrote on Wed, Oct 11, 2006 at 08:25:27PM CEST:
> 
> [...] perhaps
> we should have two options, --copy-preserve and --copy.  However, it
> won't be a problem for me (I don't use --copy) and it won't be a
> problem for Bruno (he does a make distclean after a bootstrap).  Were
> you planning to use --copy?

I'll try to switch between all that are available as much as I can, to
avoid getting bored, and to uncover as many bugs as possible by being
unpredictable.  I don't ever use distclean in my normal build tree
though (at least not unless I switch bootstrap invocation styles);
that loses my configuration information and covers up potential bugs.

But what I prefer is irrelevant for the aim to write good software;
and coreutil's bootstrap is one likely to be copied to or imitated in
other packages (I think it already is); then the safest would IMVHO be a
--copy that uses plain cp (maybe the optimization of leaving the file
alone when its contents did not change, could be added sometime later);
a --copy-preserve could also be added, but should not be the default.

Cheers,
Ralf