cp -Ru respects the -R but not the -u

[jaawerth]

Love the lib - was looking to use this to reduce copy times on builds, but ran into the following:

Node version (or tell us if you're using electron or some other framework):

8.6.0

ShellJS version (the most recent version/Github branch you see the bug on):

shelljs 0.7.8, tested both directly and via shx 0.2.2

Operating system:

Arch Linux (kernel 4.13.12-1)

Description of the bug:

When combining recursive -R and update -u options in both shelljs and shx, "recursive" overrides and ignores "update" - files are recursively copied regardless of whether the src files are newer than dist.

Example ShellJS command to reproduce the error:

Test case (assuming src/static and dist/static have contents)

const shell = require('shelljs');

// overwrite dist/static, verify that all timestamps in dist are now newer than those in src
shell.cp('-R', 'src/static', 'dist/');
console.log(shell.ls('-l', 'src/static').stdout, '\n' + shell.ls('-l', 'dist/static').stdout);
console.log('----------');

setTimeout(() => {
  shell.cp('-Ru', 'src/static/', 'dist/');
  console.log(shell.ls('-l', 'dist/static').stdout);

  // timestamps shouldn't change, but are ~1s newer
}, 1000);

Expected result

Same as

cp -R src/static/ dist/ && ls -l src/static && ls -l dist/static
echo '\n-----\n'
sleep 1
cp -Ru src/static/ dist/ && ls -l dist/static

I think I see where the fix is - just wanted to file this before I forgot in case I don't end up having time in the near future to create a PR.

[freitagbr]

Hi @jaawerth, thanks for reporting this. I am able to reproduce this on Ubuntu 16.04 with node 6.12 and ShellJS 0.7.8.

Could you point out where you think the fix is?

[jaawerth]

@freitagbr - I took another look, and I don't think the fix is where I thought it was - I thought the recursive code was failing to account for "update" but it's just wrapping the function that does so. It seems like some of the code here could be simplified some by breaking things down into small functions, but that's admittedly beyond the scope of fixing this bug..

Now it's gonna but me, so I'll tinker with it some more this week, time permitting, and see what I can find!

[nfischer]

@freitagbr can you take a look at this later? Not a big priority, but it'd be good to test and fix.

[freitagbr]

Yeah, I will take a look when I get the chance.

[joshi-sh]

https://github.com/shelljs/shelljs/blob/master/src/cp.js#L263

options.update is not passed to the cpdirSyncRecursive function, and subsequently is ignored

[nfischer]

@joshi-sh thanks for the pointer. Feel free to send a PR. At first glance, we should just pass options (simpler and future proof), but I'm not sure if there are options which are unsafe to pass recursively.

---

Related: we should rewrite cmdOptions:

cmdOptions: {
    'f': 'force', // <-- change double-negative ("not no force") to positive
    'n': '!force',
    // ...
    'L': 'followSymlinks', // <-- camel case
    'P': 'preserveSymlinks', // <-- it'd be nice to rename to !followSymlink, but I don't think this is technically feasible.
  },

[joshi-sh]

--copy-contents is the only option that explicitly changes in recursive mode (from man cp: copy contents of special files when recursive), every other option doesn't seem to conflict with -R

[nfischer]

I think -P and -L also change. I'm not sure if we explicitly test this.

[lorenzleutgeb]

@nfischer I am affected by this bug. Could you please release shelljs (it looks like version 0.8.4 is due) such that I can get a version with a fix via the NPM registry?

[nfischer]

We've landed breaking changes on master branch, but v0.9.0 isn't ready.

Cutting v0.8.4 would be nontrivial, because I would need to create a release branch and cherry-pick changes. I'm not opposed to doing this, I just haven't had the time.