From fe1f70d5f729e331facf481ec45cc1c64e095d85 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Laurent Bercot Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2015 23:28:58 +0000 Subject: Add s6-hiercopy (based on skalibs) Version: rc for 2.0.2.0 --- doc/s6-hiercopy.html | 66 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 66 insertions(+) create mode 100644 doc/s6-hiercopy.html (limited to 'doc/s6-hiercopy.html') diff --git a/doc/s6-hiercopy.html b/doc/s6-hiercopy.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a4c12f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/s6-hiercopy.html @@ -0,0 +1,66 @@ + + + + + s6-portable-utils: the s6-hiercopy program + + + + + + +

+s6-portable-utils
+Software
+skarnet.org +

+ +

The `s6-hiercopy` program

+ +

+s6-hiercopy copies a directory structure recursively. +

+ +

Interface

+ +

+     s6-hiercopy source destination
+

+ +

s6-hiercopy recursively copies source to +destination, which is created if it doesn't exist. +The permissions are preserved. The owner and group are preserved +if the user is the superuser.
It exits 0 on success and 111 on temporary failure.

+ +

Notes

+ +

Copying files and browsing through directories is one of Unix's +weakest points, and s6-hiercopy is not meant to work around +the problem; it's only a quick hack that I needed to boot my embedded +platform. I originally planned to write the ultimate cp utility, +portable and reliable and featureful and everything - while needing +approximately a hundred times less resources than GNU cp does, +of course. But I eventually dropped the idea: it's impossible to +design, much less write, such a utility. Notably, + you cannot make it reliable because Unix's set of filesystem +management primitives is just too weak. It lacks a lot of atomic +operations, and filesystem transactions. As a result, s6-hiercopy +is a walking race condition and should absolutely not +be considered instant when used in a multitasking environment. +But then, cp shouldn't either.
There is no standard way of creating device nodes on a +filesystem, so any cp-like utility is inherently +non-portable. Fortunately, most systems still agree on the non-portable usages of +mknod +specification, so things should work in practice. Consequently, +the s6-hiercopy utility has been moved from +s6-linux-utils +to s6-portable-utils.

+ + + -- cgit v1.2.3

The s6-hiercopy program

Interface

Notes

The `s6-hiercopy` program