Re: [9fans] mv on directory

["Eric Van Hensbergen" <ericvh@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 9:17 AM, Rudolf Sykora <rudolf.sykora@gmail.com> wrote:
>> There is dircp (in tar(1)) for moving trees around, or the long-form " @{cd
>> fromdir && tar cp .} | @{cd todir && tar xT} ", if you prefer.
>
> I know that. It's a copy, not move.
>
>> But "behavior deviates from the similarly-named command in
>> lunix" cannot be the definition of "bug."
>
> I just can't see any reason why to mention anything about any bug. I
> didn't do that.
>
>> Again, "What should mv do to a tree that resides on multiple file servers?"
>
> what about: mv dirA dirB ==
> mkdir dirB
> dircp dirA dirB
> rm -r dirA
>
> ... if you are able to 'rm -r' (which also may span multiple
> fileservers) than I don't see any trouble with moving the directories.
>

I would imagine that 99% of the time (more?) the behavior people
desire would be what you describe.  There are two parts to the
problem: the application and the protocol.  To have the protocol
handle rename of anything other than single element (which may be the
root of a tree) on a single file server is difficult -- however, it
seems perfectly sensible to have the application fall back to the
functionality you describe.  Does anyone rely on the 'mv' command
always having the atomic properties of a wstat?

              -eric