Bug#376743: coreutils: Undocumented change in mv's behavior

[Jim Meyering]

Florent Bayle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 It seems that there is an undocumented change in mv's behavior in versions
 5.96-1 and later of coreutils.

 To be brief :
  - coreutils 5.94-1 :
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/tmp# mkdir -p test1/test3 test2/test3; mv test2/* test1/
 mv: cannot overwrite directory `test1/test3'
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/tmp#

  - coreutils 5.96-1 :
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/tmp# mkdir -p test1/test3 test2/test3; mv test2/* test1/
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/tmp#

 I don't know if it's a bug, and what is the expected behaviour, but I
 think that it should be documented (maybe is there some scripts relying
 on the old behaviour).

Thanks for reporting that.
It's mentioned, but not clearly.  From NEWS:

  mv -T DIR EMPTY_DIR no longer fails unconditionally

Obviously, one doesn't need -T to see the change.
However, note that mv depends on the semantics of the
underlying rename system call.

I've updated the entry in NEWS on the trunk:

  mv -T DIR EMPTY_DIR no longer fails unconditionally.  Also, mv can
  now remove an empty destination directory: mkdir -p a b/a; mv a b


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Bug#376743: coreutils: Undocumented change in mv's behavior

[Florent Bayle]

Package: coreutils
Version: 5.96-5
Severity: normal

Hi,

It seems that there is an undocumented change in mv's behavior in versions
5.96-1 and later of coreutils.

To be brief :
 - coreutils 5.94-1 :
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:/tmp# mkdir -p test1/test3 test2/test3; mv test2/* test1/
mv: cannot overwrite directory `test1/test3'
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:/tmp#

 - coreutils 5.96-1 :
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:/tmp# mkdir -p test1/test3 test2/test3; mv test2/* test1/
[EMAIL PROTECTED]:/tmp#

I don't know if it's a bug, and what is the expected behaviour, but I
think that it should be documented (maybe is there some scripts relying
on the old behaviour).


Regards.

-- 
Florent

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (1, 
'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.17-1-686
Locale: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] (charmap=ISO-8859-15)

Versions of packages coreutils depends on:
ii  libacl1   2.2.39-1   Access control list shared library
ii  libc6 2.3.6-15   GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libselinux1   1.30-1 SELinux shared libraries

coreutils recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]