[svlug] Re: Mass copying (was: svlug digest, Vol 1 #619 - 1 msg)

[Aaron Lehmann]

On Sun, Mar 18, 2001 at 06:58:36PM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
> I would avoid trying to copy (let alone move) /dev, too, just on general
> suspicion.  (Or, hey, give it a try on a system where you don't mind a
> little downtime, and see what happens.)

  else if (S_ISREG (src_type)
       || (x->copy_as_regular && !S_ISDIR (src_type)
#ifdef S_ISLNK
           && !S_ISLNK (src_type)
#endif
           ))
    {
      copied_as_regular = 1;
      /* POSIX says the permission bits of the source file must be
     used as the 3rd argument in the open call, but that's not consistent
     with historical practice.  */
      if (copy_reg (src_path, dst_path, x,
            get_dest_mode (x, src_mode), &new_dst))
    goto un_backup;
    }
  else
#ifdef S_ISFIFO
  if (S_ISFIFO (src_type))
    {
      if (mkfifo (dst_path, get_dest_mode (x, src_mode)))
    {
      error (0, errno, _("cannot create fifo %s"), quote (dst_path));
      goto un_backup;
    }
    }

-- copy.c (bad indentation and all), GNU fileutils 4.0.37

    case 'R':
      x.recursive = 1;
      x.copy_as_regular = 0;
      break;

-- cp.c, GNU fileutils 4.0.37


cp, with the -R option (or -a, which implys it), copies device files,
but not their contents.

You are right re: /proc. The proc filesystem is much more transparent:
files appear as real files rather than devices.