mv does copy instead of rename

mv does copy instead of rename

[Richard Foulk]

In an Active Directory environment Windows Explorer was refusing to
rename a directory, presumably because the directory was open by
another process.

On trying mv under Cygwin to rename the directory, mv seemed to just
hang.  It was a large directory and mv was actually copying the files
to the new named directory (on the same partition.)

Does this seem like appropriate behaviour?  It was certainly unexpected.

I'm pretty sure mv is never supposed to do this on Unix.


Richard

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Re: mv does copy instead of rename

[Larry Hall (Cygwin)]

Richard Foulk wrote:
> In an Active Directory environment Windows Explorer was refusing to
> rename a directory, presumably because the directory was open by
> another process.


Why are you presuming this?  Didn't Windows report why this was not being
done?


> On trying mv under Cygwin to rename the directory, mv seemed to just
> hang.  It was a large directory and mv was actually copying the files
> to the new named directory (on the same partition.)
> 
> Does this seem like appropriate behaviour?  It was certainly unexpected.


Well, if Windows can't tell you why it couldn't move the directory, Cygwin,
which relies on Windows for it's functionality, is probably not going to be
able to out-do Windows in this regard.  'mv' may have misinterpreted Window's
"confusion" here as a cross-device move, which is implemented as a copy
followed by a remove of the original directory.  But you'd have to investigate
it to know for sure.


> I'm pretty sure mv is never supposed to do this on Unix.


Depends on the situation, as I noted above.


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Larry Hall                              http://www.rfk.com
RFK Partners, Inc.                      (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office
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