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Number   :  77
Date     :  2001-05-17
Author   :  Jim Witherspoon
Subject  :  Re: /WD switch -> a Quiz
Size(KB) :  1


Kan, I like your quiz! Let me see if I can give you the right answer.

> XXCOPY C:\mydir D:\dest /I /S /E

When XXCOPY does not find a directory named "mydir" in c:\, XXCOPY assumes
you intended to use "mydir" as the file template part of the source
specifier. Then it looks through all the directories in C:\, looking for
files named "mydir". There are no files named "mydir" anywhere in the
directory tree, so none are copied. But along the way, because the /E
switch was specified, all of the directories under C:\ are copied to
D:\dest - empty directories.

Now, why are all those directories (which do not contain a file named
"mydir") considered to be "empty directories" -- which are therefore copied
because the /E switch was specified? I guess XXCOPY considers them to be
"empty" because they didn't contain any files matching the specified file
pattern ("mydir"), even though they may have contained other files. XCOPY
shows the same behavior. If the /E switch isn't used, no empty directories
are created under d:\dest - but XXCOPY still goes looking through all the
directories for files named "mydir"

Putting a backslash after the source directory -

xcopy c:\mydir\ d:\dest\

saves a lot of trouble. It specifies that you are looking for a directory
named mydir, not a file named mydir, and XXCOPY aborts quickly without doing
a futile search for files named "mydir".

Is there any reason NOT to use a trailing backslash on the source and
destination directories? It seems like it would always be the safest thing
to do.

jim



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