Re: Add --parents option to mv command in order to create parents directories

[Rémy Lefevre]

Thanks for your explanation.

So I have to admit that my problem is confined to file system without hard link support. And I understand that this so uncommon situation doesn't need the implementation of a new feature.

Regards,

Rémy.

2013/5/8 Pádraig Brady <address@hidden>

On 05/08/2013 01:53 PM, Rémy Lefevre wrote:
> 2013/5/8 Pádraig Brady <address@hidden <mailto:address@hidden>>

>
>     On 04/28/2013 05:55 PM, Rémy Lefevre wrote:
>     > Hello,
>     >
>     > mkdir and cp commands have the --parents option to create parents directories as needed. But this option is missing in mv. One has to create first the directory structure using mkdir --parents and then mv the file. This option is fine for simple moving command, but if one want to move files according to a pattern in a big tree structure, it starts to be too complicate as the directory name should be extracted for almost each moved file.
>     >
>     > So another solution is to use the cp --parents command and then delete the original files. But this solution is far from good for all the reasons that differentiate a copy from a move.
>     >
>     > So I propose to add a --parents option to mv command in order to create the parents directories as needed. In the case of acceptance, I could write a patch to add this feature.
>
>     Maybe, but I'm not sold on the need TBH.
>     At first glance it seems like it's uncommon enough
>     that using cp might suffice?  You could even do
>     this efficiently within a file system like:
>
>     { cp -l --parents src dst || cp --parents src dst } && rm -r src
>

> Alright. Using hard links is a good idea. I'm curious to know what the general difference between:
> "mv src dst" and "cp -l src dst && rm src"

Well link(2) might not be supported on the file system whereas rename(2) could be.
I.E. The above will be inefficient within a vfat file system for example.

Another attribute of the `cp -l;rm` approach, is that
it can allow you to keep a tree in a consistent state.
I.E. you can have the new location in place to switch to atomically,
before you delete the old location.

Other than that, the operations are similar.

cheers,
Pádraig.