Re: Bug#479764: shell builtin mv fails to move files across devices

[Stephane Chazelas <Stephane_Chazelas@yahoo.fr>]

On Tue, May 06, 2008 at 04:03:03PM +0100, Clint Adams wrote:
> On Tue, May 06, 2008 at 03:42:08PM +0100, martin f krafft wrote:
> > lapse:~/debian|master|debian.ch% echo $ZSH_VERSION
> > 4.3.6-dev-0+0428
> > lapse:~/debian|master|debian.ch% zmodload zsh/files
> > lapse:~/debian|master|debian.ch% which mv
> > mv: shell built-in command
> > lapse:~/debian|master|debian.ch% mv /tmp/debian.ch_T-Shirt_20080422-poll.png .
> > mv: /tmp/debian.ch_T-Shirt_20080422-poll.png: invalid cross-device link
> 
> Anyone up for changing this in a future version?
> 
>     Note  that  this  mv  will not move files across devices.  Historical
>     versions of mv, when actual renaming is impossible, fall back on copying
>     and removing files; if this behaviour is desired, use cp and rm manually.
>     This  may  change  in  a future version.

Note that POSIX requires mv to be able to move files (and now
directories) accross file systems. Note that it's quite a
complex task as it involves recreating the files as they were
(permissions, ownership, ACLs, sparse files), handle conflicts,
handle hard links correctly, and handle the error cases
properly. It's not as simple as cp+rm, it would rather be pax
-rw && rm -rf 

-- 
Stéphane