xinstall vs. file copy & file mkdir

[Jordan K. Hubbard]

On Dec 10, 2007, at 5:06 AM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:

> What's the difference between "xinstall" and "file copy" and "copy"?  
> Here's what I've found:
>
> - xinstall has the -W option so you can say "xinstall -W src a b c d  
> dst" to copy a whole bunch of named files from src to dst. It  
> doesn't look like file copy can do that.
> - file copy can copy directories. It doesn't look like xinstall can  
> do that.
> - file copy preserves modification dates. xinstall does not.
> - copy is the same as file copy.
>
> What's the difference between "xinstall -d" and "file mkdir"? I  
> don't know. And if there's a reason to use "file mkdir", should  
> there be an alias "mkdir" for it?

This is a good comparative analysis, thanks.  The file command in Tcl  
obviously predates xinstall, the latter being written when I noticed  
that a lot of people were doing "system install ..." and the option of  
building it in meant that I could provide better error reporting and a  
few other features (like -W) down the road.  I didn't really compare  
and contrast it thoroughly with the file procedure, though I probably  
should have just to establish the areas of overlap.  I do know that  
xinstall is certainly a lot more powerful than file copy when it comes  
to specifying target ownership, modes and so on.   For that reason  
alone, it might be a good idea to simply add the notion of preserving  
modification dates and such (I'm not sure what you mean by "copying  
directories" above).

- Jordan