A quirk in the "cp" command (relative vs full paths)

[s243a]

I noticed an inconsistency in the cp command syntax. The following with relative paths doesn't work:

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cp -arfv --remove-destination "ppm-mod-3.0_patch"/* ppm-mod-3.0

because it creates a directory called ppm-mod-3.0_patch inside ppm-mod-3.0, when what I was trying to do was merge.

The workaround is to either cd into ppm-mod-3.0_patch folder and do the following:

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cp -arfv --remove-destination * ../ppm-mod-3.0

I think that "./*" would do the same as "*" here, or alternatively use the full path of each folder in the original path. What I think is odd here is how the behavior of "cp" changes if you use relative paths vs full paths but I think that I'm missing some design philosophy here in linux like systems.

[MochiMoppel]

The following with relative paths doesn't work

Works perfectly for me. Copies contents of the source directory, not the directory itself.
Full paths or relaive paths make no difference. No quirks, no inconsistencies.