Re^3: Copy preserving attributes

[JavaFan]

Considering that the running time of the 'cp' is most likely to be bound by disk I/O, I wouldn't worry about the overhead of calling 'cp'.

Specially if you have the need to take care of system specifics (like extended attributes/ACLs), I would prefer calling the systems 'cp' then doing it all yourself. Specially if you don't have access to all the environments the program is supposed to run in.

[gmargo]

I'd have to agree with JavaFan, especially considering those new-fangled attributes. One potential for optimization, if you're not renaming files: you could gather them up by destination directory, and copy multiple files within one command. Not the best solution for error reporting though.