Re: (reiserfs) Re: Summary of how linux can best avoid the need for streams

Albert D. Cahalan (acahalan@cs.uml.edu)
Sat, 3 Jul 1999 11:35:23 -0400 (EDT)


Ragnar Hojland Esp writes:
> On Thu, Jul 01, 1999 at 04:32:49PM +1000, Richard Gooch wrote:

>> Now, I realise that some people may say that mv(1) won't move
>> directories across filesystems. True. We should fix mv(1) to
>> effectively do <cp -a; rm -rf> (with error checking).
>
> Depends on mv. A posix compilant mv(1) won't, but a GNU
> fileutils >= 4.0 will.

Do you mean MUST NOT or MIGHT NOT?

Unless POSIX is much more clear than Unix98, I'd say fileutils
is OK. Unix98 says that the "mv utility will perform actions
equivalent to the XSH specification rename() function", but does
not seem to restrict rename() and mv operation very much.

If mv is interrupted, it will leave at least one intact file.
It may leave an incomplete file too.

Look at this:
When files are duplicated to another file system, the
implementation may require that the process invoking mv
has read access to each file being duplicated.
Note the "may". You could have a setuid-root mv command or a system
call that handles the problem in some special way.

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