GNU bug report logs - #64785
Package: coreutils Version: 8.32-4+b1 program=mv

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Message #22 received at 64785 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Nir Oren <niro <at> edev.co>
To: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
Cc: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigbrady.com>, 64785 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#64785: Package: coreutils Version: 8.32-4+b1 program=mv
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2023 22:41:00 +0300

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I agree with Paul suggestion for an error message.
In any case, Coreutils 5.93 message was better than the current one

On Sat, Jul 22, 2023 at 8:37 PM Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu> wrote:

> On 2023-07-22 03:19, Pádraig Brady wrote:
> > Given the subtleties in this area,
> > I'd be reluctant to adjust diagnostics here.
>
> I looked into this a bit more. Given "mv dir e" where e/dir is an
> existing nonempty directory, 7th Edition Unix fails this way:
>
>    mv: e/dir exists
>
> Solaris 10 mv fails this way:
>
>    mv: cannot rename dir to e/dir: File exists
>
> Coreutils 5.93 fails this way:
>
>    mv: cannot overwrite directory `e/dir'
>
> Current coreutils fails this way:
>
>    mv: cannot move 'dir' to 'e/dir': Directory not empty
>
> macOS fails this way:
>
>    mv: rename dir to e/dir: Directory not empty
>
> If you ask me, none of these are all that good. Current coreutils and
> macOS give a confusing "Directory not empty" message (which directory?).
> Solaris 10 has a similar confusion. 7th Edition and coreutils 5.93 don't
> print strerror (errno).
>
> All things considered, how about if we go back to something like
> coreutils 5.93, except output strerror (errno) too? That is, something
> like this:
>
>    mv: cannot overwrite 'e/dir': Directory not empty
>
> This focuses the user on the problem, avoiding confusion from the
> irrelevant source file name. We'd use this format if renameat fails with
> an errno that means the problem must be with the destination, and stick
> with the current format otherwise. Affected errno values would be
> EDQUOT, EISDIR, ENOSPC, EEXIST, ENOTEMPTY.
>

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