Prevent deletion of file when it is being copied
While copying a file from my computer to external disk, I by mistake shift+deleted the file. But still the file transfer dialog showed that it was continuing. At the end of the transfer it failed. Hence i request you to add a check for file transfer before deleting the file. Nimit Shah, B Tech 4th year, Computer Engineering Department, SVNIT Surat www.dude-says.blogspot.com -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Prevent deletion of file when it is being copied
Nimit Shah wrote: While copying a file from my computer to external disk, I by mistake shift+deleted the file. But still the file transfer dialog showed that it was continuing. At the end of the transfer it failed. Hence i request you to add a check for file transfer before deleting the file. As much as this would be a lovely feature, I don't believe that it is something that we could implement in Ubuntu. When copying a file, there are usually two ways to go about it: either open the entire file, and write it to a new location, or open a series of sections of the file, and write them each to a new location. There are a very large number of programs that provide both of these mechanisms in the archive. In the majority of cases, the first potential solution is not used, because it limits file copies to files that fit entirely in memory (with everything else), and requires a longer-running algorithm, but when the second method is used, the file cannot be allowed to be deleted before the file transfer is confirmed as complete. When deleting a file, the usual practice is to remove the reference from the directory definitions (unlinking), leaving the underlying filesystem to manage recovery of the newly available space. Again, there are a vast number of packages in the archive providing programs that do this. In order to implement the feature you describe, we would have to either provide some systems interface that traps all calls to unlink() and checks some external reference to determine if it is being copied or patch all software that could potentially delete files to check the reference, whilst simultaneously patching every package that provides a means to copy a file to populate this reference during the file copy, which would make all such operations considerably slower, with potentially massive impact on server capacities, interactive response times, and battery life. Further, it is unlikely that the developers and maintainers of most of the software in our archive would be willing to accept such patches, given the potential complications and incompatibilities with other systems, such that the result of this vast undertaking would require considerable ongoing development effort to port these patches for each new upstream release. Lastly, in the event that any of the programs providing file copy functionality were to crash, they may not properly clear the reference indicating files whose deletion need block on the transfer completion. As a result of such a crash (or any other bug when updating references), a user's system may end up having any number of files that cannot be deleted without manual intervention into the file transfer reference. -- Emmet HIKORY -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Prevent deletion of file when it is being copied
I think the problem that Nimit explains is only related to Nautillus. Am I right Nimit? Also you didn't said if the file you deleted was the source or the destination one? Regards, Nicolas 2012/9/27 Emmet Hikory per...@ubuntu.com Nimit Shah wrote: While copying a file from my computer to external disk, I by mistake shift+deleted the file. But still the file transfer dialog showed that it was continuing. At the end of the transfer it failed. Hence i request you to add a check for file transfer before deleting the file. As much as this would be a lovely feature, I don't believe that it is something that we could implement in Ubuntu. When copying a file, there are usually two ways to go about it: either open the entire file, and write it to a new location, or open a series of sections of the file, and write them each to a new location. There are a very large number of programs that provide both of these mechanisms in the archive. In the majority of cases, the first potential solution is not used, because it limits file copies to files that fit entirely in memory (with everything else), and requires a longer-running algorithm, but when the second method is used, the file cannot be allowed to be deleted before the file transfer is confirmed as complete. When deleting a file, the usual practice is to remove the reference from the directory definitions (unlinking), leaving the underlying filesystem to manage recovery of the newly available space. Again, there are a vast number of packages in the archive providing programs that do this. In order to implement the feature you describe, we would have to either provide some systems interface that traps all calls to unlink() and checks some external reference to determine if it is being copied or patch all software that could potentially delete files to check the reference, whilst simultaneously patching every package that provides a means to copy a file to populate this reference during the file copy, which would make all such operations considerably slower, with potentially massive impact on server capacities, interactive response times, and battery life. Further, it is unlikely that the developers and maintainers of most of the software in our archive would be willing to accept such patches, given the potential complications and incompatibilities with other systems, such that the result of this vast undertaking would require considerable ongoing development effort to port these patches for each new upstream release. Lastly, in the event that any of the programs providing file copy functionality were to crash, they may not properly clear the reference indicating files whose deletion need block on the transfer completion. As a result of such a crash (or any other bug when updating references), a user's system may end up having any number of files that cannot be deleted without manual intervention into the file transfer reference. -- Emmet HIKORY -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss -- Nicolas MICHEL -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
