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Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 18:09:52 -0500
To: Corinna Vinschen <corinna DOT vinschen AT cityweb DOT de>
From: "Larry Hall (RFK Partners, Inc)" <lhall AT rfk DOT com>
Subject: Re: B20: mv deletes files on error (NT)
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        cygwin AT sourceware DOT cygnus DOT com
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At 12:35 AM 3/30/99 +0200, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>
>
>"Larry Hall (RFK Partners, Inc)" wrote:
>> 
>> to support this at the expense of existing functionality?  I think this
>> change needs to be revisited.
>
>IMHO, `mv' should be changed, by inserting `#if[n]def __CYGWIN__'.
>Or would you like to downsize the abilities of a system, because _one_
>program handles it the wrong way?
>
>Regards,
>Corinna
>


Again, depends on your point of view which change will "downsize the 
abilities of a system".  Considering that the semantics have been what UNIX
users expect all this time and no one had cause for complaint with it, I'm
not certain that the change will not be perceived as a downsizing (I've 
learned over the years that perception is more important than the actual
facts of a matter).  In any case, I'm not suggesting that hard links should 
not be supported, if this is indeed the way to support them.  I'm merely 
questioning whether the current change is not trading one for the other.  In 
the same flavor as your suggestion to modify "mv" to make it work as it did 
in the context of your change, what's wrong with modifying "ln" to handle 
hard links while "mv" and perhaps even cygwin remain as they have always 
been?  Wouldn't making a change to "mv" necessitate a change to "cp" as 
well?  What about other utilities???  This doesn't seem to me to be in line 
with the goal of Cygwin.  

There's always multiple ways of solving a problem.  I'm just questioning if
this is the best way to solve this one.  I personally don't think it makes 
sense to change "mv", "ln", or any other utility outside the Cygwin DLL unless
its absolutely necessary.  That's my only point.  If you are claiming that a 
change to one ("mv" in your case) or more is the only way to handle this 
situation, then I guess you've made your point clear as well.  

Is there any other point that's been missed?  

Personally, I foresee rounds of complaints from those used to the semantics
of "mv", "cp", and others in UNIX-like environments once this change hits
the release.  It seems to me like it has the potential to be yet another
"text vs binary" debate.  I'm not interested in seeing such debates 
repeatedly in this list until all the tools get "properly ported"...:-(


Larry Hall                             lhall AT rfk DOT com
RFK Partners, Inc.                     (781) 239-1053
8 Grove Street                         (781) 239-1655
Wellesley, MA, 02482-7797              http://www.rfk.com

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