'Andre Merzky' wrote:
Hi,
Quoting [Hartmut Kaiser] (Oct 30 2007):
Andre,
2. What is supposed to happen when the source is a directory, the recursive flag is set, and the target is a file? I assume remove target, create target dir, and copy? And if overwrite flag is not set, throw AlreadyExists? Uhm, tough one! Unix shell would say:
koks merzky /tmp : mkdir a koks merzky /tmp : touch a/a b koks merzky /tmp : cp -Rf a b cp: cannot overwrite non-directory `b' with directory `a'
We don't have an exception for this. So, yes, I would concur with your interpretation: the target file should get removed, and a target dir with the same name should get created. Deleting a file in the case the user wanted to delete a directory is bad, IMHO. I'ld suggest to throw an AlreadyExists exeption.
It would be nice to get another opinion to break the tie (I myself am not sure which way is better).
OK, I thought about this now. Here is My opinion: I agree with Hartmut: throw an AlreadyExists exception, with a clarifying message, like "cannot overwrite non-directory `b' with directory `a'". I agree that deleting the file is a bad idea. If the user wants this, he/she should remove the file first. Ceriel