[wp-hackers] Upgrade instructions fatally flawed for Mac

Charles lists07 at wiltgen.net
Thu Jan 18 22:30:22 GMT 2007


(I'm reluctant to continue the thread because I think this has been
explained multiple times, but here's a try at a summary...)

> I specifically had hoped to clarify why some people think Mac OS X
> only knows how to overwrite folders. What are the steps to duplicate
> the problem?

There are two things a client can do when copying/moving folder "Foo" (we'll
call this "new Foo") into another folder that already contains a folder
called "Foo" ("old Foo").

- Behavior 1:  Replace Folder

  In this case, you assume the user wants to replace "old Foo" with
  "new Foo" wholesale.  Any files in "old Foo" that don't exist in
  "new Foo" are gone forever.

- Behavior 2:  Merge Folder

  In this case, you assume the user wants to merge -- that is,
  replace individual files in "old Foo" with same-named files in
  "new Foo" -- the two folders instead of replacing them.  Any
  files in "old Foo" that don't exist in "new Foo" are still
  around.

Mac OS X users can merge folders using the FileMerge utility that ships with
the OS <http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/macosxhints/2006/03/cmpfldr/>.

-- Charles

*Examples of different clients include Mac OS X's Finder, FTP app running on
Mac OS X, Windows Explorer, Sftp Drive (which mounts an SFTP server as a
Windows drive letter), the Linux "cp" command, etc.




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