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From: phys169@canterbury.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: Serious bug in GNUish mv
Message-ID: <1990Sep26.102324.9233@canterbury.ac.nz>
Date: 26 Sep 90 00:39:38 GMT
References: <11303@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
Organization: University of Canterbury
Lines: 19

In article <11303@spool.cs.wisc.edu>, so@brownie.cs.wisc.edu (Bryan So) writes:
> 
> Further, there seems to be no shareware/pd versions of mv that
> conforms to UNIX semantic, in particular, will recursively move 
> a directory.  The GNU port can rename a directory but will not 
> move.  Is it that difficult?
> 
I have a move command that will move whole directories (and any
subdirectories), but otherwise isn't all that *ix-comaptible. If you
want a copy let me know. The reason it is difficult is that the DOS call
that renames files across directories doesn't work with directories, and 
the sneaky way of renaming directories (after knocking off the directory
bit temporarily) doesn't rename across directories. It is possible to
move directories around on the same disk by stretching compatibility a
little, but my program moves directories the slow-but-safe way, that also
lets it work with JOIN'ed disks, etc. It still moves individual files
quickly, if it can.

Mark Aitchison, Physics, University of Canterbury, New Zealand.