Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!nathan
From: nathan@eddie.MIT.EDU (Nathan Glasser)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Rename bug?
Message-ID: <9341@eddie.MIT.EDU>
Date: 26 May 88 19:06:57 GMT
References: <9312@eddie.MIT.EDU> <467@aiva.ed.ac.uk>
Reply-To: nathan@eddie.MIT.EDU (Nathan Glasser)
Organization: MIT, EE/CS Computer Facilities, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 22

In article <467@aiva.ed.ac.uk> alex@eusip.ed.ac.uk (Alex Zbyslaw) writes:
>RENAME(2)           UNIX Programmer's Manual            RENAME(2)
>     Rename causes the link named from to be renamed as to.  If
>     to exists, then it is first removed.
>Need I point out the importance of the second sentence?

From the same man page, a couple of sentences later, it says:
     Rename guarantees that an instance of to will always exist,
     even if the system should crash in the middle of the opera-
     tion.

I don't know about you, but I think there's an inconsistency in the
man page. First of all, the operation is in consistent with the
sentence I've included. Secondly, in the section Alex included, it
says that 'to' will be removed, but if it removes it in the case where
they're the same file, then it won't be able rename 'from' to be 'to'
like it claims to do without great difficulty.
-- 
				Nathan Glasser
fnord				nathan@{mit-eddie.uucp, xx.lcs.mit.edu}
"A tribble is the only love that money can buy."	    
Presently there is insufficient evidence to conclude that tribbles spread AIDS.