On 04/05/2013 06:23 PM, Michael Boldischar wrote: > Hello, > > This is a suggestion for a new feature in the "mv" command. This feature > applies to moving directories. If a user moves a directory with a lot of > files and encounters an error, it can often leave the source directory in a > partially moved state. It makes it hard to redo the operation because the > source directory has changed. > > The feature I'm looking for is a flag in the "mv" command that preserves a > copy of the source directory until the entire tree has been successfully > copied to the destination directory. At that point, the move command can > delete the source directory. That way, a user can fix the error and rerun > the same move command. It makes it easier and less of a headache. > > There might be other ways to accomplish this. But, I would use this feature > all the time if it were available. I call it the "safe move operation."
safe move, sounds like copy and remove. mv does this on a file by file basis. To do this for a whole tree you could just: cp -a old/ new/ && rm -Rf old/ cp -u might be useful in this situation also, but rsync is more general than cp -u/ thanks, Pádraig.
