control of partition numbers

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

[I'm new to parted, and when I use it, I'm very task-oriented.  So
perhaps I've missed a way to do this.]

Sometimes I wish to control the partition number of a partition that
I've just created or modified.  At least with logical partitions, this
seemed very difficult (I don't know whether this applies to primary
partitions).

To be more specific, I found that I needed to delete and recreate a
partition.  One side effect was that it lost its number and became the
last.  I could not think of a way of restoring its old number that did
not involve deleting and recreating all the partitions which
previously had higher numbers.

I think that it should be easy to add a command that would allow
control, but awkwardly.  It would exchange the position of two
partitions, but not change them in any other way.

A more convenient command would accept a permutation to apply to
partition numbers.  (Any permutation can be specified by a sequence of
pairwise exchanges.)

I guess that all 4 primary possible partitions should be treated as
existing in some sense (I understand that there are entries for all
four, but non-existent ones are specially marked).

Hugh Redelmeier
address@hidden  voice: +1 416 482-8253