There are a lot of tools which use KIO::copy(KIO::move) for copying(moving) but there is no possibility to use it with option dereference symlink(follow symlink) as cp does(option -L). There are also separate bugs reported regarding to missing such functionality for that tools(krusader, konqueror, dolphin). Reproducible: Always Link to similar thing reported to tools used KIO::copy: konqueror: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=124898 krusader: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=357478
What's the use case for this, out of curiosity?
1. One could use it to compile big files like movies locally by symlinking them into one folder and then copy the data to an USB drive all at once to avoid parallel copying. 2. Or one could organize pictures by different criterion by creating folders ("home", "artistic", "best-shot" ...) and place symlinks inside. And again, making a copy of such a folder would be easily possible.
For use case #1, that seems like a workaround for our lack of sequential copying support. Bug 296109 This is a pretty darn nerdy feature, but it might be worth adding it anyway if we can make sure the UI doesn't degrade the experience for normal users.
The most problematic issue in my case is when I try to copy files to pendrive. Due to the fact that on pendrive I have FAT I can use symlink there.
Is there any chance this gets implemented? I frequently need to copy the targets of symlinks to a FAT file system which doesn't support symlinks, of course. I have to do it via command line; cp automatically does the right thing – even better than adding the option (IMO, others might disagree) would be if krusader could detect the target file system does not support symlinks somehow and dereference the symlinks automatically, just like cp seems to do.