[CMake] What is the most reliable way to concatanate files on Windows?

[Alan W. Irwin]

The PLplot build system needs to contatanate some files together.  The
cross-platform way we do this right now is to use cat if it is available
(which handles the Unix case) and otherwise if the Windows cmd or command
are available use the copy command.  This method is somewhat fragile (one
Windows user could not find any of cat, cmd, or command), and even when copy
is used (for the cmd or command case), we are currently experimenting to see
if Windows native paths are needed or not.

Just in case the PLplot developers have missed something, is there some more
reliable way for us to concatanate files in a cross-platform way?

Of course, the ideal way to avoid this mess would be to use the "cmake -E
concatanate" command, but as far as I know that hasn't been implemented yet.
File concatanation is a pretty fundamental capability so I am entering a
plea here to the CMake developers to put this idea on their ToDo list
(assuming it isn't there already).  If the implementation is non-trivial and
therefore has to be put off, let me know, and I will make a wish-list bug
report for it.

Alan
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Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of
Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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