GNU bug report logs - #30907
mv return value.

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From: Eric Blake <eblake <at> redhat.com>
To: Jorgen Harmse <Jorgen.Harmse <at> samsclub.com>, Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
Cc: "30907 <at> debbugs.gnu.org" <30907 <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
Subject: bug#30907: mv return value.
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 08:00:01 -0500

On 03/22/2018 05:47 PM, Jorgen Harmse wrote:
> I see Eric's point, but it seems to me that my use case is not unusual. (Rename a file unless the target exists, in which case check that they are the same before removing one.) Perhaps the documentation of mv could suggest a solution, e.g.
> 
> (ls b &> /dev/null && diff a b > /dev/null && rm a) || mv -n a b

That's a TOCTTOU race.

It sounds like what you want is close to the kernel's 
renameat2(,RENAME_NOREPLACE) semantics, which atomically renames a file 
or fails if the destination already exists, then on failure check if the 
two files are identical before removing the source.

I don't know if mv exposes RENAME_NOREPLACE semantics yet, but it should 
be taught to do so, where such semantics are available.

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-- 
Eric Blake, Principal Software Engineer
Red Hat, Inc.           +1-919-301-3266
Virtualization:  qemu.org | libvirt.org

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