rsync vs. cp

By brian | Published: March 3, 2009
rsync -a /path/to/bar/ /path/to/foo/  # => /path/to/foo/[contents of bar]
rsync -a /path/to/bar /path/to/foo/   # => /path/to/foo/bar/[contents of bar]
 
cp -a /path/to/bar/ /path/to/foo/     # => /path/to/foo/bar
cp -a /path/to/bar /path/to/foo/      # => /path/to/foo/bar

why can’t cp have the same source behavior as rsync?

btw, I found the solution on this blog:

mkdir target_directory
cd source_directory
cp -a . target_directory

(on the blog, the author does cp -ap, but that looks redundant according to the man page)

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