"Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@opendarwin.org> on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 at 12:31 AM -0800 wrote:

xinstall and file copy are different - xinstall is implemented in pextlib, and apparently doesn't recursively copy directories. It's a shame.

So yeah, while xinstall won't handle directories, copy will do it just fine. The difference is that copy won't handle file permissions, but xinstall does.

I was trying to copy the semantics of install(1) in order to obey what seemed to be the principle of least astonishment. That said, I'm having a hard time thinking of just how and where the world would end if someone were to enhance it to actually copy directories. I was probably being too conservative.

For the sake of consistency, it would be a great thing. From what I understand from Kevin's explanation last night, to copy recursively and set permissions without system calls requires this: ---------- copy ${worksrcpath}/src/lib ${destroot}${prefix}/lib/${name} find ${destroot}${prefix}/lib/${name} {expr 1} { file attributes $filename -permissions 755 -owner root -group wheel --------- Which really in't so bad, but it would be nicer if it could be done in a single commd. But for now should this be the recommended way? If so I think we need to stick this in portfile.7. Mark