From: Robert Klemme <bob.news@...>
Date: 2004-03-16T18:24:40+09:00
Subject: Re: How can I copy a read-only file?


"Joe Mason" <joe@notcharles.ca> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:slrnc5d6mm.b35.joe@gate.notcharles.ca...
> In article <EAENKKNOJPMNCDMLDOMLIENNDJAA.curt@hibbs.com>, Curt Hibbs
wrote:
> > I've got a generic method that copies files. I want to preserve the
> > attributes of the source file in the destination file. I started using
this:
> >
> >    require "ftools"
> >    ...
> >    File.copy(src_file, dest_dir)
> >
> > This works until I encounter a read-only file, then I get an
exception:
> >
> >    c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/ftools.rb:23:in `initialize':
> >    Permission denied - E:\Dev\RubyDev\rubyinstaller\c
> >    vs-repo\installer\stable/doc\DBD/ODBC-0.96/COPYING
> >    (Errno::EACCES)
>
> Yes.  That's because you don't have permission to read it, as expected.
>
> > So, how do you copy read-only files in ruby?
>
> You can't.  That's what read-only means.  Try it at the command prompt,
> you won't be able to copy it there, either.

???  "Read only" means you can *only* read it, but not write it.
Obviously you *can* copy read only files, but you can't write to a read
only file.  Although often you can first delete a read only file you want
to write to and then write a new file with the same name.

    robert