To: John Rouillard <rouilj@renesys.com>
cc: Tim <elatllat@gmail.com>, pgsql-admin@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: archive_command vs. cp -i 
In-reply-to: <20110617172650.GG26732@renesys.com> 
References: <20110617084057.238070@gmx.net>
	<4DFB3B68020000250003E7EA@gw.wicourts.gov>
	<BANLkTinjAm0nQ8Kosv7Q1u4=5UZj4jcFHQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<20110617172650.GG26732@renesys.com>
Comments: In-reply-to John Rouillard <rouilj@renesys.com>
	message dated "Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:26:50 -0000"
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:04:56 -0400
Message-ID: <20654.1308333896@sss.pgh.pa.us>
From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

John Rouillard <rouilj@renesys.com> writes:
>> On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 12:32 PM, Kevin Grittner
>> Kevin.Grittner@wicourts.gov> wrote:
>>>> This could be reproduced on CentOS 5.6, RHEL4, and Ubuntu 10.04.
>>> I've confirmed on SLES 10 and Ubuntu 9, too.

> Not really surprising since choosing to not copy a file isn't really
> an indication of an error when copying a file so...

> I get the same result (0 exit status) on solaris 8 and solaris 10 with
> /bin/cp.  I wonder what platform the example worked on.

cp does behave as the example suggests for me, on OS X and HPUX.  I
suspect Bruce tested it on some BSD variant before putting it in the
docs.  That would suggest that it probably works that way on most (all?)
BSDen.  Still, if the GNU version doesn't act that way, we have a
problem.

The test-and-cp approach seems the most likely to be portable.

			regards, tom lane