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From: "Matt Emmerton" <matt@gsicomp.on.ca>
To: "Peter Jeremy" <PeterJeremy@optushome.com.au>,
	"Brian Candler" <B.Candler@pobox.com>, <freebsd-current@freebsd.org>
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Subject: Re: Order of files with 'cp'
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> On Fri, 2005-Nov-18 15:50:53 +0100, Mario Hoerich wrote:
> >This just adds a -o flag to cp, which preserves order.
>
> I think that's overkill.  IMHO, cp should just copy files in the order
> specified on the command line (or directory order for recursive copies).
> For most purposes, the order is irrelevant.  In cases where it is
> relevant, the caller has a better idea of what order they want and can
> juggle the command line to suit.

Hear hear!  The underlying change, while technically sound, breaks POLA -- 
which should have been the first thing to consider when this change was
suggested, and should have been rejected immediately on that ground alone.

Why not revert to the "legacy" behaviour, and use the -o option for the
"optimized" algorithm?

--
Matt Emmerton