Re: Move Command Feature

[Pádraig Brady]

On 04/05/2013 06:23 PM, Michael Boldischar wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> This is a suggestion for a new feature in the "mv" command.  This feature 
> applies to moving directories.  If a user moves a directory with a lot of 
> files and encounters an error, it can often leave the source directory in a 
> partially moved state.  It makes it hard to redo the operation because the 
> source directory has changed.
> 
> The feature I'm looking for is a flag in the "mv" command that preserves a 
> copy of the source directory until the entire tree has been successfully 
> copied to the destination directory.  At that point, the move command can 
> delete the source directory.  That way, a user can fix the error and rerun 
> the same move command.  It makes it easier and less of a headache.
> 
> There might be other ways to accomplish this.  But, I would use this feature 
> all the time if it were available.  I call it the "safe move operation."

safe move, sounds like copy and remove.
mv does this on a file by file basis.
To do this for a whole tree you could just:

cp -a old/ new/ &&
rm -Rf old/

cp -u might be useful in this situation also,
but rsync is more general than cp -u/

thanks,
Pádraig.