`cp`: Usage of `--recursive` multiple times

[TheDcoder]

It seems GNU coreutils doesn't mind if the user uses the recursive argument multiple times, this leads to incompatibility with our implementation since we reject it:

error: the argument '--recursive' cannot be used multiple times

I found this issue while using this script which calls cp like this:

cp -r "${srcdir}/${_pkg}/"* "${pkgdir}/opt/${_pkgname}" -R

I'm not sure why it's being used like that but it works with GNU coreutils.

This issue might be more widespread as I expect other GNU utils to follow the same lenient behavior regarding arguments which set a flag.

[TheDcoder]

Turns out it was just a mistake (and not some obscure feature):

dcelasun commented on 2023-07-03 11:55 (IST)
@TheDcoder it's just a mistake, I'll fix it in the next release. Keep in mind that coreutils (the GNU one) is mandatory for AUR packages. Third party reimplementations are unsupported. It's on them to be compatible with GNU, bug for bug.

I agree with the last statement, we should silently ignore errors like this to maintain compatibility.

[tertsdiepraam]

Yeah basically all flags in coreutils do this. In clap, we generally fix this by allowing them to override themselves, which should be turned on already. So I'm not sure what's going on there. Good catch!

Maybe this should be used: https://docs.rs/clap/latest/clap/struct.Command.html#method.args_override_self
I'm not sure why it isn't already. There might have been some reason for that

It's on them to be compatible with GNU, bug for bug.

I agree with this too. Keep the bug reports coming and we'll get closer and closer!