Subject: Re: B20: mv deletes files on error (NT)
From: "Larry Hall (RFK Partners, Inc)" <[email-masked]>
To: Corinna Vinschen <[email-masked]>
Cc: Chris Faylor <[email-masked]>, David Dagon <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 17:05:24 -0500

At 11:33 PM 3/29/99 +0200, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>
>
>"Larry Hall (RFK Partners, Inc)" wrote:
>> 
>> If that's true, how does one rename a file based on case sensitivity only?
>> On b19 (which as all I have at this location), mv can do this without
>> complaint or problem...
>> [...]
>> Seems a shame if this functionality has been lost...
>
>It's not a shame, it's a feature :)
>
>The older cygwin snapshots has generated i-node numbers by hashing over
>the filename, which has the advantage, that `mv' works for the mentioned
>situation by accident. But the disadvantage of this older implementation
>is simply, that it wasn't able to realize, that two directory entries
>are the same file. This isn't important on FAT, but NTFS allows real
>hard links.
>
>Regards,
>Corinna
>

One person's feature is another's bug!  I guess now I understand what the
goal of making this change was.  I have to say, for the number of times that
hard links are used (especially in Win 9x), I can't say that I think the 
change is for the better.  Still, I have no problem with adding functionality
to cygwin (in general or in this case specifically) so long as it doesn't
remove functionality.  I think if we need to make sure we can use hard links, 
we need to be able to do this without sacrificing something that is 
functionally useful.  At the very least, if nothing else can be found, we 
need a switch, even though I hate this idea in general.  Mind you, I'm not 
against adding the ability to make use of NTFS hard links but why do we need
to support this at the expense of existing functionality?  I think this 
change needs to be revisited.

Larry Hall                             [email-masked]
RFK Partners, Inc.                     (781) 239-1053
8 Grove Street                         (781) 239-1655
Wellesley, MA, 02482-7797              http://www.rfk.com

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